An Unusual Father
by Ryo-Oki
Summary: A young Ranma finds himself in a fantasy world where he is met, then raisedrnby a most unusual warrior and his pet hamster. This is a Ranma 12, Baldur's Gate 2, Forgotten Realms Crossover. Brand new chapter 4 now uploaded on Feb. 20, 2006
1. A Warrior and His Hamster

An Unusual Father

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction by Ryo Oki 

Disclaimer: All characters and places not created by me are probably owned by someone else.

Author's Note: This story will be a little different from my last story, 'Little Angel Lost' in that it has no set ending. I will simply be adding chapters as ideas come to me. This story will be primarily a comedy with some romance thrown in. It will be primarily a crossover with the Baldur's Gate 2 pc game universe and the forgotten realms universe in general with one other crossover that will be apparent a little later.  
For those familiar with AD&D mechanics the setting will use a mixture of first and second edition rules with a home made spell point system instead of the usual magic system used in AD&D.

Chapter 1: A Warrior and His Hamster.

A small village in the Southern half of Rashemen, on the world of Toril, (Forgotten Realms):

Two women were sitting by a large caldron in a primitive wooden shack. Both were wearing robes that covered them from the neck on down. One their faces they wore an elaborate mask cut into the form of some sort of bird's head. One of the women was stooped with age and the other younger woman had to help the elder woman as she moved around the shack gathering ingredients from various glass bottles that lined the walls.

"Are you sure that we should be doing this? Do we have a right to interfere in another person's destiny?", the younger woman asked the older one.

"You have seen what the caldron had shown us earlier my dear Siervella. It is in the boy's best interest that we interfere. He will have a far better life and perhaps he can help tame that headstrong daughter of yours.", the older woman said to the younger woman.

"She is not that bad mother?", Siervella said as the older woman just shook her head.

"My time is short on this world. I have perhaps a dozen years left at the most. When I pass on, you will take my place and when that happens you will need someone to assist you. If your daughter is not ready, the leadership of our tribe could go to one of the other families. Your daughter will need some help in growing up and hopefully the boy will be able to help not only in that regard but perhaps in as a suitor as well.", the old woman said.

"Sigh, you know what my dear Suzanna, thinks of most males. If it weren't for the fact that she used to have a crush on the village smith I would think that she preferred the company of other females. This boy will have quite a time getting to know her.", Siervella pointed out.

"That he will, but for now let us begin the summoning ceremony.", the elder woman said to her daughter.

The women began to circle the cauldron, chanting in a language that few people outside of their tribe had ever heard. As they moved the ingredients from the various bottles were tossed into the caldron causing it to hiss and bubble.

As they continued to chant a red fog started to rise from the cauldron and within a minute it had almost filled the shack. As the last ingredient was tossed into the cauldron various multicolored spheres of lights flew out from the shack and began to hover over an inscribed series of circles and lines in the center of the village.

As the chanting reached its crescendo, a loud cry of, "Watch where you put your hands, 'BOY'!", distracted Siervella causing her to recite the last words of the spell improperly. The spheres of light flew out from the village, towards a nearby swamp and the cauldron began to shake violently before it exploded, destroying the shack in the process.

As the smoke cleared many of the villagers were clearing away what was left of the shack. They worried about whether the two women were still alive and were quite shocked to find them buried but unharmed due to a transparent blue energy bubble that was surrounding them.

The last of the ruble was tossed away by a women with dark black skin, snow white hair and slightly pointed ears. Many of the other villagers seemed to stay away from her, despite how she was helping them.

"Lady Siervella, Priestess Navidene, are you alright?", the elvish looking woman asked as she helped them both to their feet.

"We are alright Viconia, but I am afraid the spell was not a success entirely. I do not know if we managed to summon the one that we intended to,  
Queen Navidene replied.

"Several spheres of light were seen streaking towards the nearby swamp. If they were part of the summoning, the one that you had intended to bring forth may have materialized there.", Viconia.

"He will not survive long in that troll infested region. Several warriors will have to be sent at once to retrieve the boy,  
Siervella stated.

"I thought as much and sent my darling husband to retrieve the boy. I do not believe that any of the trolls will be so foolish as to get in his way.", Viconia said.

"No I don't believe that they would.", the queen said to Viconia.

Meanwhile in another world entirely:

A young boy of about eight years, and a balding man in his mid thirties were running through a lightly wooded area as fast as they could. Both were wearing tattered white martial art gis and sandals. They both had rather panicked expressions on their faces which changed to shock as a tree branch in front of them seemed to explode while a loud cracking sound roared out from behind them.

"Dammit pops what did you do this time?!?", the boy shouted out as he realized that he and his father were being shot at.

"Don't talk boy, just keep running.", the older man said as he scooped the boy up in his arms and began to run even faster.

Life had been difficult for the man lately. His name was Genma Saotome and it was his goal in life to teach his son Ranma to be the best martial artist that even existed. He wanted to do this partially out of pride, and partially out of the fact that his highly skilled boy would be able to support his loving father in his old age.

Genma had stumbled onto an old martial arts manual that mentioned an 'unbeatable' technique known as the neko-ken, or cat fist, but from the start he was having trouble teaching the boy the technique. He had to first collect dozens of cats, starve them and throw them into a pit, where they would attack his brave son, who would then fend them off, while learning to fight with the ferocity of a feline in the process. Well, at least that was the idea.

From the beginning though, the little demons, (cats), did not seem like being grabbed and tossed into a bag by the elder martial artist. It also hurt when they scratched him. To make matters worse, whenever he set the bag down in order to start digging the pit in which he would toss the cats and his son into, the cats would somehow escape.  
If he had the ability to pay attention to more than one thing at once,  
Genma would have noticed that it was his son who was letting the cats out of the bag, so to speak. Ranma was always fond of cats and his mother had always let him have one or two as a pet when her was 'young', so he didn't like it that his daddy was being so mean to the kitties.

Because of the amount of stray cats that kept getting away Genma had decided to start 'borrowing' house cats. They tended to be more docile and were easier to bribe with food. Unfortunately many people tended to be quite fond of their pets and were not too happy when someone tried to steal them, which brings us to the situation that Genma and his son Ranma now found themselves in.

Genma had come across a large walled estate in which the owner kept a large number of cats as pets. Most were quite fat and easily caught. Genma was quite proud of himself for finding such 'easy pickings'.

The estate though turned out to belong to a local Yakuza boss, who was not exactly thrilled to see some vagrant make off with his purebred 'babies'. Upon being discovered the chase began.

Genma continued to run, but he knew that he could not keep it up for much longer. He needed a place to hide and he needed to find it fast. He spotted what he thought was a shallow depression hole, covered by some bushes near by, so without thinking he threw Ranma into the bushes and continued onward before finding another 'shallow' depression. As he leapt into the hole, Genma found out that it was a partially hidden edge of a cliff and Genma barely managed to stop himself in time.

Looking over to where his son was supposed to be, Genma gasped in shock at seeing his son roll off of the cliff and fall downward out of sight.

Ranma initially hit the ground hard and started to roll. He wondered what his idiot father was up to, when the earth just seemed to give away. As he started to fall, Ranma saw just how far the ground was below him. Now Ranma had always possessed quite a good imagination and he now had a pretty good idea what he would look like after hitting the ground.

As he began to panic, Ranma saw a variety of multi-colored balls of light began to form around him. Within a few seconds Ranma and the lights, vanished entirely, without any evidence that they had even appeared in the first place.

Genma was lucky in one regard; It was growing dark and the men who had been chasing him failed to notice Genma's bruised and battered body laying near the edge of the cliff. His formerly white gi was now covered in dirt and foliage which helped hide the man. The men hunting him and his son, soon gave up and started back to their boss's home.

As Genma continued to lay as still as he could near the edge of the cliff he knew that he had a large problem on his hands. With his son gone, and lost due him trying out a training method that his dear wife probably would not have approved of, he was stuck as to what he should do next.

He couldn't tell his wife or anyone else the truth. They would not understand. Maybe he should not even go back to wife, even if he did think up some sort of story to help explain how he had lost Ranma.  
If his wife did except his story and did not try to kill him Genma would be expected to take care of the family and that involved......getting a job. Genma was not sure that he could handle that.

For most of his life, Genma had trained in nothing but martial arts. This was not true when he was child. Up until he was almost twelve Genma had a different dream. Surprisingly Genma used to be quite skilled in math such that even at the age of ten he could give any adult a run for their money in problem solving. This was unacceptable to his father, who was a lackluster martial artist at best.

Genma's father wanted his son to be what he could not, so he contacted a skilled, but somewhat unusual teacher by the name of Happosai. The little pervert's methods were harsh, but they did produce some amazing results. Genma became quite a skilled martial artist, but there was a price to pay. All of the abuse that Genma suffered led to the boy, then man becoming brain damaged, to such an extent that he could no longer access the skills that enabled him to be considered a math prodigy by his peers. All he had left was his martial arts, everything was a hazy dream.

Genma, knowing no better began to train his son the same way that he had been trained. He did not do this out of spite or evil as his master did. No it was just that due to all of the blows on his heads that he had suffered, Genma now possessed a wisdom score lower than most forms of plant life. Because of this Genma's age old 'dream' of becoming a CPA was long behind him. He now had to rely only on his martial arts skills.

After a few more hours of waiting, Genma began to make his way back towards his home in Jubaan. He wanted to run away more than anything, but the only option that left him, was to become a wanderer from now on, and that would not lead to the comfortable life that Genma crave. No, he would have to return to his wife and hoped that she would believe the story that he still had to create on how Ranma met his end.

Back in Rashemen, it had been an hour since the explosion destroyed the hut and disrupted the spell that Siervella and her mother had tried to cast. Neither of the women were hurt seriously, but both were quite angry at having such a delicate spell disrupted, especially after they found out who was responsible for the disruption and the reason that her yell did disrupt the spell.

A twelve year old girl with long green hair and red eyes was brought before Navidene and Siervella. She had an angry expression on her face that vanished instantly when she noticed the stern expression on the faces of the older women.

"Daughter do you know what your foolishness has done?", Siervella spoke sternly to the young girl, who mumbled something incoherently.

"Suzanna, you will answer clearly when your mother speaks to you. Your actions today are a disgrace. you must learn to set a better example for those around you. Do you understand what I am saying to you?", Navidene said.

"But grandmother, I didn't do anything wrong, it was that boy that touched me.", Suzanna said while pointing to a young 12 year old whom the guards had brought before the two women.

"Are you saying that this boy did something improper?", Siervella said to her daughter.

"Hey all I did was touch her on her back to get her attention. I didn't do nothing wrong.", the boy said loudly, then apologized to the two older women.

"See he admits it. I am going to lead this tribe some day so no one should touch me without my permission.", Suzanna said in an arrogant tone of voice.

"Why were you trying to get my daughter's attention?", Siervella asked the boy.

"I saw her drop this earlier and I was just trying to get her attention so that I could give it back to her.", the boy said as he held up a silver necklace.

"What my necklace! I didn't lose it. He probably took it and was trying to take something else, when I yelled, he is nothing more....", Suzanna tried to say but was cut off by her grandmother.

"That is enough young lady. I am growing quite tired of your arrogance and childishness. You may go son. Guards leave us as well.", Navidene said in a harsh tone of voice that caused the boy and the guards to leave the room as fast as they could.

"My dear daughter, each day you disgrace yourself more and more. What am I to do to you. It is bad enough that you think of yourself as being better than everyone else, but to accuse someone of theft when he was trying to return something to you is going to far.", Siervella stated.

"How do you know he was telling the truth?", Suzanna replied to her mother.

"Your grandmother and I have ways of telling. You should know that from all the times you have 'exaggerated the truth' in the past,  
Siervella said to her daughter.

"Now you are going to apologize to that boy, then you are going to return here and your mother and I will decide on your punishment,  
Navidene stated.

As Suzanna left in a 'huff', Siervella turned towards her mother with a tired look on her face.

"Do you still wish to bring that boy into the village. It might be better to send him to live somewhere else. We do not have to return to his world and let him suffer that fate, but I still do not think that he will be able to 'tame' my daughter.", Siervella said.

"I have seen more of his life than you have, and I think that at the very least he will show our dear Suzanna that she is not better that everyone else. Of course if the gods do happen to smile on us, perhaps something more will happen between them.", Navidene said.

"In either case we should not speak of this to either of them. I do not know how this boy might respond, but I do have an ideas about how Suzanna might respond.", Siervella said.

In another part of the village, Suzanna had just given a half hearted apology to the boy that she accused of being a thief. She expected him to be angrier with her, but he seemed to accept her apology quite quickly. What she didn't realize was the affect that her appearance had on boys her age. The reason that so many boys seemed to accept her was not her families, position in the village, but the fact that she was one of the most exotic looking and beautiful girls her age in the village.

Her looks did not have the same effect on the girls on the village.  
If anything they had the opposite effect. Many of them were jealous and quite angry at how Suzanna treated most people, especially the boys her age, who in many of the local girls' opinions, would be far better of if they paid attention to someone else.

"Spoiled brat, look how she is treating Keane.", one of the local girls said to another.

"And look how he is responding. Why are they so interested in her. It's not fair.", another girl said.

"I think she needs to be taught a lesson.", a third girl said.

"She does, and I have an idea on how we can do it.", the first girl said to the other two.

Five miles outside of the Rashemen village, the 'balls' of light had formed into a ring and were now hovering six feet in the air. Their appearance had attracted some of the 'residents' of the area, who were curious about what the ring signified. Not one of the beings approached it, but they were close by.

The light ring suddenly flared and out of it fell a familiar eight year old boy, wearing a tattered martial arts gi. He landed with a loud splash in a particularly foul pool of water.

"(Cough) (Choke), Dammit pops what the $#&$ did you do to me now,  
Ranma said as he quickly pulled himself out of the pool and looked around to find himself in the middle of a swamp.

"Stupid old man, better not be trying to find a bunch of wolves to chase me through a swamp again.", Ranma said in an annoyed tone of voice.

"Being chased by wolves? Now there is an interesting form of amusement.", a guttural voice echoed throughout the area.

Ranma looked around trying to locate the source of the voice when he was surprised by a rather large creature that almost seemed to materialize out of nothing. The creature was almost eight feet tall with green 'rubbery' looking skin. It had a large nose with stringy green 'hair' and 2 small red eyes.

"What are you?", Ranma asked the large creature while beginning to back away.

"What am I? I am a troll of course, but you should know that since you are speaking my language, which is most unusual for a human.", the large troll said.

"Troll? Like living under a bridge type of troll.... Wait a minute,  
you aren't speaking Japanese.", Ranma said.

"Boss....Boss.... You here? Oh! you find human...Maybe we eat?", a younger and smaller looking troll said as it came up from behind the larger one.

"Eat!?! Heh, sorry I ah have to go now.", Ranma said as he turned around and tried to run, only to find himself scooped up easier by the large troll which moved a lot faster than Ranma thought such a large creature could move.

"Now don't be rude, besides I have no intention of eating you,  
the large troll said to Ranma.

"We not going to eat him boss?", the small troll said.

You are such an idiot Alphonse. I swear if you weren't my brother I would.....Never mind just listen and try to understand. This human understands our language and we understand him. There is some sort of magic involved here and I think that those witches are involved. Maybe he is one of them. In any case he is worth more alive than dead. We can ransom him off to the witches for food or wealth and buy what we need from those idiot orcs nearby.", the large troll said.

"I don't know boss. Those witches very tough, and if boy belongs to them, then maybe 'HE' will be sent to retrieve the boy.

Albion, the larger troll sighed. He wondered why he was doomed to be surrounded by idiots. Why couldn't more trolls have received the blessing of their god like he did. If they were more intelligent and more 'cultured' like he was, in his opinion then their race would be much better off. But no, they were all idiots who hid in the swamps for fear of being killed by humans, who had far too much fire around them for the trolls liking.

"Never mind him lets return to our camp then we can send one of those worthless kobolds to the witches so it can relay our demands to it.", Albion said.

"Hold foul creatures lest you incur the wrath of Minsc and Boo.", a new voice bellowed out.

"Oh $## its 'him'!!!", said in a panicked tone of voice.

Albion turned towards the voice and found himself looking at one of the witch's pet barbarian warriors. This one looked particularly unintelligent and it had some sort or small rodent sitting on its shoulder.

"This is the fearsome warrior my idiot brother is scared of,  
Albion thought to himself in disgust.

"Alphonse take care of that fool human!", Albion ordered.

"What!?!", Alphonse replied in terror.

"Just do it or you will be the next sacrifice for that damnable lich.", Albion ordered.

Alphonse cautiously advanced towards the human and his hamster,  
but when he came within six feet of the human, the warrior hurled his hamster towards the smaller troll with a strange battle cry of,  
"Go for the eyes Boo! Go for the eyes!!!"

What happened next left Albion standing dumbstruck. As the small Hamster Boo came within inches of his brother time seemed to slow down. The hamster landed on his brother's nose then spun around and kicked his brother causing Alphonse's head to snap around violently. Another kick send Alphonse spinning end over end into the ground.

"What the nine hells is going on? Is that some sort of disguised dragon or demon?", Albion thought.

As Alphonse hit the ground for the third time, he screamed like a scared kobold and took of running as fast as he could. Boo Leapt off of the ground and back onto the Minsc's shoulder. This was a leap of over 20 feet. Something wasn't right here and Albion was not amused.

Dropping Ranma to the ground on his head, stunning the boy, Albion leapt towards the man and his 'demonic' rodent. Alphonse maybe a whining worthless idiot, but he was Albion's brother and only he was allowed to beat the crap out of him.

Albion saw the hamster approaching him and he managed to knock it aside much to the human's surprise. Albion had lived for over forty years and he was not to be taken lightly.

Minsc leapt backwards, avoiding Albion's claws and pulled out a large two handed sword from its sheath that Minsc wore across his back. The sword now free of its containment burst into flame, causing Albion to retreat for the moment.

Normally such large swords were quite hard to handle but the human seemed to be able to move it as fast as one could normally move a dagger through the air, Albion noticed.

Minsc leapt towards the large troll, his sword catching Albion in the shoulder and moving on through, severing Albion's right arm. Off balance Albion stumbled just avoiding Minsc's sword, which would have removed his head.

Albion cursed himself, he was far too old to be making such foolish mistakes. He knew that if he wanted to make it to his 41st birthday he would have to retreat now. The fire wound would take far to long to regenerate.

Managing to stand upright, Albion leapt away as far as he could into the deeper water surrounding the pond in which he first grabbed the small human. Hopefully the warrior and his accursed rodent would not be able to follow him. Albion would not forget this defeat though.

Picking up the unconscious Ranma, Minsc turned to where Albion had fled and shouted out, "Evil beware! Now you know the true power of a warrior and his Hamster!!!

Halfway to the village Ranma awoke and found himself being carried by someone. At first he thought that it was his father, but since his father usually did not wear metal armor, and since whoever was carrying him was at least 6 inches taller than Genma, Ranma knew that this wasn't his father.

Feeling Ranma starting to stir, Minsc set Ranma on the ground, with his back leaning against a large cypress tree.

"Ah good, you is awake. Minsc was worried that you hit your head to hard.", Minsc said.

"(Squeak, Squak) He evidently has a head as hard as yours. Hopefully it is not as empty though.", Boo squeaked.

"Huh, did that thing talk.", Ranma mumbled while blink to clear his still fuzzy vision.

"Oh you can understand Boo? You must be very special or very smart.  
Only Minsc can usually talk to Boo.", the large barbarian said to Ranma.

"Which is proof that intelligence is not a factor.", Boo squeak out.

"See even Boo thinks you are smart.", Minsc said, while not really being able to speak 'Hamster' all that well.

"Stupid pops. He must have hit me too hard again. I saw that big green thing, now a rat is talking to me.", Ranma grumbled.

"I am not a rat. I have you know that I am a miniature giant space hamster that come from a long line of noble hamsters.", Boo squeak out with pride.

"Boo is not a rat, he is a miniature giant space hamster.", Minsc said.

"Didn't I just say that?", Boo remarked in his own language.

It took about an hour, but Boo and Minsc finally convinced Ranma that he wasn't dreaming. The question was though how did he get here to this Rashemen? place and how was he going to get home. Maybe these witches that the big bald guy talked about could help if they were real that is. Ranma had never seen any real magic. He had seen some martial arts skills that looked like magic, but that was different.  
Hopefully the big guy was telling the truth.

Back in the village it was decided that neither Navidene nor Siervella would tell Ranma that they were responsible for bringing him here to their world. At his age it was doubtful that he would understand. Even if he did realize what his father had planned for him he still might want to go back since the boy had known no one else.

No they would be silent. It would be a shame for such a promising boy to die so young, especially in an attempt to save one who was so unworthy of the effort.

"So if there witches can not help is there a telephone or radio that I can use to call the police or my mother?", Ranma asked,  
while still thinking that he was in his world. After all there are all sorts of legends of weird animals in myths and stories.

"Telephone?, Radio? Sorry Minsc not know what you mean.", the large barbarian said to Ranma.

"Never mind....", Ranma said as the village Minsc talked about came into view. Maybe someone there could help him.

As they entered the village, Minsc pointed out his mother and sister to Ranma as the two people who could be the most help to him in trying to get back. Minsc was presently unaware that they were the ones who brought Ranma to Rashemen. Only the two witches and Viconia knew where Ranma came from.

Ranma looked at how old the village seemed to be. It reminded him of something he once saw on television before his father dragged him off.  
Maybe these people were like those he saw on TV. Those people were in Africa though, not in Japan.

Now Ranma was not a stupid child, in fact he was quite intelligent as Genma was before he had his intelligence beaten out of by Happosai, proving that, in this dimension at least, Genma at first did give his son at least something of importance.

It was only after years of physical and mental abuse by Genma that Ranma reverted to just reacting to his surroundings instead of thinking things through. Still he was a little confused about how a bunch of darker skinned American? looking people could have such a village in Japan. Maybe those weird lights brought him someplace else, like on that old American science fiction series his mother used to watch.

Minsc and Ranma walked up Navidene and Siervella. Ranma noticed the strange masks that the women were holding. These definitely reminded him of those African villagers on TV. Before he could say anything though, the two women and a few armed guards? Ranma guessed, led them into a very large log cabin type of building.

"So Minsc, I see you brought us back a guest. Was he at the source of the magical disturbance that we detected.", Navidene lied with a calm demeanor.

"Minsc find boy in Swamp. His name is Ranma and he was going to be taken prisoner by troll warriors.", Minsc said.

"I think they wanted to eat me.", Ranma said as everyone seemed surprised that he could speak their language.

"You speak Rashemen son. Have you been here before?", Siervella said in confusion.

"That big troll said the same thing, but he was speaking my language like you are now.", Ranma said as Siervella and Navidene shared a knowing look with each other.

"I found out that the boy can speak to Boo as well. I was quite surprised as usually only Minsc can understand Boo.", the large bald barbarian said to his mother and sister.

"Well he tries to understand anyway.", Boo sighed as Ranma snickered at Boo's statement.

"Can you help me to go home?", Ranma asked Navidene. It was obvious that the boy was more than a little concerned about where he was despite the brave front that he was putting up.

"We will try our best to get you home eventually, but I believe that it may take a little time.", Navidene said.

"I wonder where pops is now? He probably doesn't care that I am even gone.", Ranma said sadly.

"Don't be sad. All of us will help you. You can even stay with me and Viconia.", Minsc said.

"Who is that?", Ranma asked.

"She is Minsc's wife. Maybe you to can talk since she is not from here either.", Minsc replied.

"Now that is a bit of an understatement.", Viconia said as she was led into the room.

Ranma turned towards Viconia and his eyes practically bugged out of his head. She looked like someone from an anime.

"Why are you staring?", Viconia said a little too sharply. Her looks were still a sore point with her. Maybe this boy shared other humans' opinions of her race.

"I uh....um....", Ranma tried to say.

"Don't be nervous, Viconia just thought that maybe you thought that she was strange looking.", Siervella said with an evil grin directed towards the somewhat sensitive drow woman.

"No she's not strange. She is.....well....", Ranma still stumbled over his words.

"Yes, go on.", Siervella coached the boy.

"I was looking, because I thought that she was preety.", Ranma said to a stunned Viconia.

"(Snicker), (Giggle), Why Viconia dear, how scandalous of you to attract such younger men.", Siervella replied.

"Perhaps I overreacted, I did not mean to scare you.", Viconia said to Ranma.

"That's ok. Maybe you want to be friends.", Ranma said with a smile.

"Well at least he doesn't sulk for long. Tis a shame that you can not say the same for other people.", Viconia thought to herself.

As everyone left the assembly hall, Navidene and Siervella stayed behind to discuss Ranma's 'surprise' appearance near their village.

"At least we know now how my mispronunciation of the last part of the spell affected our guest.", Siervella said to her mother.

"Instead of transporting the boy, you said translation. That explains the boy's gift of tongues.", Navidene said.

"It will make it easier for him to fit into village life.", Siervella remarked.

"And it will make it easier for him to get to know your daughter as well.", Navidene stated.

As Ranma was leaving the assembly hall, he felt someone run into and bounce off of him. Staggering bag slightly, Ranma noticed that a strange looking girl was on the ground in front of him. She was a couple of years older with long green hair and red eyes.

"Watch where you are going you stupid boy.", the girl exclaimed.

"Hey it was you who ran into me.", Ranma said.

"As charismatic as ever I see, Suzanna dear.", Viconia said to the young girl as she yanked her up back onto her feet.

"I wasn't talking to you, 'DROW'.", Suzanna said in contempt as Viconia briefly contemplated squashing the little girl like one would do to a rather loathsome variety of vermin.

"Geeze what spoiled brat.", Ranma grumbled.

"How dare you speak that way to me. Do you now who my mother and grandmother are, you grungy and homely little boy.", Suzanna replied.

"Hah, you are the ugly one, 'Troll Face'.", Ranma said with a smirk.

"What did you call me?", Suzanna growled out.

"I called you 'Troll Face', because you look like one of those ugly trolls in the swamp, with your funny green hair, little red eyes, and that big nose of yours.", Ranma grinned even wider.

"My nose is not big!", Suzanna shouted.

"Hmmm, now that Minsc think about it, her eyes kinda like that of swamp trolls.", the large bald barbarian remarked. as Ranma snickered.

"See I am not the only one who thinks that you are funny looking,  
Ranma said as Suzanna had a red aura briefly appear around her and she managed to pull a wooden staff out of no where.

She swung the staff at Ranma who stepped to the side causing the staff to strike the ground and vibrate out of Suzanna's hands.

"Stay still you miserable $#$ $#($ $(#!!!", Suzanna yelled out.

"Geeze, you stink. But you are just a dumb funny looking girl anyway.", Ranma said as Suzanna charged at him and Ranma took of running,  
while having fun with teasing this silly girl.

"Ah, tis good to see children playing. Reminds Minsc of when he was a boy, having fun teasing Siervella.", Minsc said with some fondness in his voice.

"Sigh, men in their silly games. It's fortunate that they have us to look after them.", Viconia thought to herself.

As Ranma continued to run, with Suzanna right behind him, he noticed a patch of ground, that the ground he was approaching, was 'blurry,  
for some reason, like some sort of mirage. Not wanting to take any chances, he leapt into the air, as soon as he reach the edge of it,  
surprising three young girls who were hiding near.

All three of the girls, were a little older than Ranma, but one seemed very short for her age.

"That was so neat.", the young 'short' girl said as her friend smiled as the expression of awe on the little Halfling girl's face.

As Ranma landed on the far side of the 'shimmering' ground,  
Suzanna ran right up to the edge then seemed to disappear. A few seconds later, a scream of outrage echoed throughout the village.

The shimmering effect was some sort of illusion and Suzanna fell right through it and down onto a rather large and foul smelling compost heap.

As soon as he heard the scream Ranma stopped and turned around in confusion. He didn't seem the little troll faced girl anymore, but he did see a 'new' pit in the ground. Walking up to it, he carefully looked over the edge and saw his new 'friend' trying to climb up, while covered in garbage.

"Pew.....You stink. Now you even smell like a troll.", Ranma said as Suzanna began to yell out some very violent and quite creative things that she was going to do to him, when she caught him.

As Ranma walked away from the pit and back towards the center of the village, he saw three young girls walking towards him, one of whom looked like she a midget or dwarf, Ranma guessed.

"I see you had the 'pleasure' of meeting Suzanna", the tallest girl of the three, said to Ranma.

"And you kicked her butt too.", a blue-eyed blond girl said to Ranma.

"How did jump so far?", the little Halfling girl said to Ranma.

"Oh that was nothing, anybody can do that.", Ranma said.

"Really?!? So you could teach me to do that?", the little Halfling girl looked at Ranma with stars in her eyes. A fact that made Ranma nervous for some reason.

"Please forgive Cassandra, she is just happy that someone finally put Suzanna in her place.", the blond girl said to Ranma.

"Well now that Suzanna has been dealt with, let me introduce myself. My name is Marlena.", the tallest girl of the three said to Ranma.

"My name is Corinne.", the blond girl also said to Ranma.

"And my name is Cassandra.", the Halfling girl said as thunder suddenly was heard. "I wish I knew why that happened.", Cassandra said as she noticed how the thunder surprised Ranma.

"Don't worry about it, a martial artist is not scared of anything. Besides its kind of neat.", Ranma said.

"Reeaaalllyyyy???", Cassandra said as she took hold of his arm and smiled at Ranma.

"Sigh, there she goes again.", Marlena stated.

Ranma introduced himself to the three girls. They were curious as to how he first appeared in the swamp. He really didn't know, but he told them that the witches that he met thought that it was some sort of magic.

The girls also asked Ranma where he came from. They had never heard of Japan, but they had seen two people from Kara-tur in the village before, so they guessed that Ranma must be from around there.

The other two girls left Ranma and Cassandra alone shortly there after. Ranma wanted to find Minsc so that he could show him where he would be staying. Cassandra said that she knew where the house was so she showed Ranma.

Minsc and Viconia arrived a little while later and Viconia seemed to be quite amused to see the little Halfling girl hanging off of Ranma. He was the latest in a long line of crushes that the girl had evidently.

Suzanna eventually made her way home and amused her mother with her 'somewhat' disheveled appearance.

"Do I want to know what happened?", Siervella said to her daughter while sounding as if she already knew what caused her daughter to be in such a state.

Suzanna told her mother how she had been attacked by a very evil little boy, who first insulted her, then chased her into a pit while calling her 'naughty' names.

This explanation seemed to conflict with what Siervella had seen earlier as she and her mother watched Suzanna chase Ranma around the village.

Since the last thing she wanted to do was argue with her headstrong daughter at the moment, Siervella simply sent the girl off to clean herself up.

After Suzanna had left, Navidene faded into view next to her daughter.

"I take it you heard everything.", Siervella said to her mother.

"Of course, it wouldn't do to ignore my dear granddaughter,  
Navidene replied.

"Their meeting could have gone better. I would hazard a guess that Suzanna almost hates the boy at this point.", Siervella remarked to her mother.

"She is just stunned at someone near her age standing up to her,  
especially a boy. I don't think that she would ever truly mean to cause him, or anyone permanent harm.", Navidene said.

"It is fortunate that Suzanna's magic skills are still rather weak. I would hate to go around the village searching for the boy if Suzanna ever learned how to polymorph someone.", Siervella said.

"The most she could do right now is a 'daze' or frost bolt spell, both of which are far to weak to do the boy any real harm,  
Navidene said to her daughter.

Back on Earth it had been two days since Ranma had disappeared and Genma still was unsure of what he should do. He was still walking,  
although, quite slowly, back towards the home he shared with his wife,  
but he had yet to think of a credible story to tell as to how Ranma had disappeared. He could tell her that the boy died, but then he would have to explain what had happened to the boy's body.

Admittedly Nodoka was quite gullible at times. That is what attracted Genma to her in the first place. She came from a rather wealthy family, and believed all of the silly stories about honor that Genma had told her over the years.

Genma was not ashamed to admit that he like his women very cute and stupid. It may not be right, but it wasn't anyone's business to judge him. So if he fell for Nodoka because she often displayed less common sense than even Genma himself possessed, so much the better. Genma knew that he wasn't a genius, but at least he realize his limitations....well for the most part anyway.

Perhaps he should look up is old friend Soun. Together they might come up with a good reason to explain the boy's disappearance. With Ranma gone they would no longer be able to join the families, unless Nodoka decided not to kill him and wanted to have another child instead, but Genma wasn't exactly holding his breath on the odds of that happening anytime soon.

With that in mind, Genma decided to skip going to Jubaan and began to head towards Nerima and the Tendo dojo where his old friend should still be teaching.

It took Genma less than a day to reach his old friend's house. He recognized the old dojo immediately, but something was not right. As he approached the gate, he noticed black wreaths and black crate paper decorating the fence surrounding the house. Soun was prone to fits of depression Genma remembered, but this seemed a little excessive.

As Genma was deciding whether or not to ring the bell at the gate it opened and he found himself looking down at a rather depressed looking eleven year old girl with long brown hair.

"Can I help you?", the girl said listlessly.

"Is Soun Tendo home, I would like to speak with him.", Genma said carefully as if expecting something unpleasant to happen at any moment.

"I'm sorry father is not seeing anyone now.", the girl said as she started to close the gate.

Stopping the gate Genma looked at the girl and said "Tell him that his old friend Genma is here, I'm sure that he'll see me.", Genma said.

The girl, sighed, turned around and led Genma into the front yard.  
The front yard was a mess to say the least. Bits of bricks and wood were tossed in small piles all over the yard. The koi pond was covered by a layer of green algae and was emitting a rather unpleasant smell. Genma could even see the living room through the open back veranda of the room,  
and from what he could tell the inside was probably as bad as the outside of the home.

What was wrong with his friend? No student would ever approach a dojo that was in such bad shape. It spoke of someone who was sloppy and undisciplined.

The young girl, disappeared into the home. A few moments later,  
Genma was about flattened by a U.C.O, Unidentified Crying Object. As Genma pushed the loud 'creature' away from him he noticed that is was his old friend Soun.

"Old friend I am glad you are here. It is horrible, just horrible,  
Soun said.

Before Genma could ask his friend what was going on, he heard a very familiar voice that caused his freeze in place with a very nervous expression on his face.

"Genma is that you. Is Ranma with you?", a young looking woman with long red hair said as she stepped up on the front porch where Genma was.

"Why Nodoka-chan funny meeting you here.", Genma said nervously while wondering what he was going to do now.

Back in the Rashemen village, Minsc and Viconia led Ranma into their home, with Cassandra still hanging on the boy's arm. Once inside their home,  
Viconia's personality seemed to change dramatically in how she treated Ranma.  
Outside in the village she seemed rather cold and distant, but inside she was acting like a doting and protective mother. She even went as far as to use a healing spell to treat some very minor wounds that the boy had picked up during his little adventure in the swamp.

Viconia seemed quite excited to show Ranma his room, which was already decorated as if a young boy was already living their. As Ranma was looking around the room, Viconia excused herself by saying that she had to prepare dinner and that she was going to make sure that Ranma had enough food for a growing warrior.

Ranma looked very confused at the dark skinned lady's behavior. He also noticed a look of concern on Minsc's face.

"Is something wrong, she's acting a little funny. It's ok if I stay here isn't it. I mean I don't have to share a room with your son if he doesn't want to.", Ranma said as he notice Minsc wince when he mentioned Minsc's son.

"Minsc and Viconia no longer have a son. He 'left' us many years ago when village was attacked by the trolls. Please do not mention this to Viconia. Even since our son died she has not had anyone to take care of, so if she treats you like a little child, please do not complain. Maybe having you here will help her feel better.", Minsc said

"I don't want to hurt her. She seems like a nice lady. If she acts a little funny I won't complain.", Ranma said as Minsc smiled.

"I won't say anything either.", Cassandra said which wasn't really necessary since the whole village already knew about how sensitive Viconia could be if someone mentioned her son.

"Stupid trolls.", Ranma grumbled as Minsc left him alone in the room with Cassandra.

"They used to cause all kinds of trouble, but after Seren was killed, both Minsc and Viconia spent almost a year killing every troll that they could find. I was surprised that you even met one when you were in the swamp. The few that are left hide whenever they see anyone of our tribe.", Cassandra said to Ranma.

Cassandra left about an hour later, just before everyone was going to have dinner. She wanted to stay, but she would have had to told her mother earlier. Instead she settled for hugging a surprised Ranma, then waving to him as she ran off. Minsc seemed to be amused by this and he watched Ranma wince as he asked the boy if his girlfriend was coming back tomorrow.

Author's Note:

As I said in the beginning of this chapter, I do not have a set ending for this story as I did when I wrote the first book of Little Angel Lost. You may have noticed the amount of ways that this story could go, from all of the loose ends that were started in this chapter. For now though, I can say that Ranma will be spending the next couple of chapters in the Realms. He probably will eventually make his way back to his own world, but I have other things in store for him first.

My next project might be a second chapter for this story or perhaps a side story for Little Angel Lost. I am not ready to begin the second book that that story as of yet. It has been a few years since I have looked at any source material for Krynn in which the second book of Little Angel Lost will take place. This is not to say that the first book of that story was exactly planned out very well. I n fact I had originally intended for it to be a 30 or 40 page short story but as you may have noticed it became somewhat larger than that. So I guess we will all just have to wait and see what develops. Whatever I come up with it will of course be published under my name on as well as a few other places.

If you wish to send me email about this story or any of my others you can leave me a message at

Hope to here from you.

Ryo Oki 


	2. A New Life

An Unusual Father

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction by Ryo Oki All characters and places not created by me are probably owned by someone else.

Author's Note: This story will be a little different from my last story, 'Little Angel Lost' in that it has no set ending. I will simply be adding chapters as ideas come to me. This story will be primarily a comedy with some romance thrown in. It will be primarily a crossover with the Baldur's Gate 2 pc game universe and the forgotten realms universe in general with one other crossover that will be apparent a little later.  
For those familiar with AD&D mechanics the setting will use a mixture of first and second edition rules with a home made spell point system instead of the usual magic system used in AD&D.

Chapter 2: New Lives

Genma Saotome had just arrived at his best friend's house in the hopes of talking with the man in regards to how they might explain how he had 'lost' his son Ranma in a way that would not cause Genma's wife to want to kill the lazy old martial artist. Things though, did not exactly go as planned.

Genma's wife Nodoka had stepped out into the front yard, when she had heard a familiar voice.

Genma was at a loss at what to say, at first, so he just stood there with his mouth hanging open. He did notice that his wife looked a little different from last he saw her. It hadn't been that long, but he was sure that his wife did not usually wear modern clothing, especially tight jeans. He also did not see any evidence of that damnable sword that she always carried with her. Of course it could be inside the house.

Nodoka came up to Genma, hugged the surprised man, then asked where her son was again.

"No-chan...we should go sit down inside...This will take some time to explain.", Genma said hesitantly as he his wife now had a concerned look on her face.

On his way to Soun's Genma had toyed with the idea of finding someone to replace Ranma or simply saying that the boy was left training at some distant temple in order to become the best martial artist that there is. These ideas were discarded though, because Genma knew one thing about his wife, she would only accept Ranma being gone for so long and she could sense the boy when he was near by, even if she couldn't see him at the moment.

Once everyone was inside Genma decided to tell the truth.  
well sort of. The best lies were mixed with some truth after all.

"No-chan this is hard for me to say, but I am afraid our son is no longer with us.", Genma said as sadly as he could.

"What...how?", Nodoka replied as Genma saw tears began to form in her eyes. He had to be strong though, regardless of how much a woman's tears affected him.

"Ranma and I came upon what we thought was an old abandoned estate outside of Tokyo. We thought it the perfect place to train.  
As we looked around though, we found out that it was already occupied by several Yakuza. We came upon them just as they were dividing up several large stacks of Yen. They had guns with them. I grabbed Ranma and started to run, but he was shot as we tried to escape. He fell from my arms and rolled off of a steep cliff. I could not grab him in time.", Genma said as tears started to flow.

Nodoka looked at her husband and decided that he was telling the truth. After all her manly husband would not lie about such a thing would he?

Soun started to cry about the injustice of it all and had just started to mention about the houses not being joined when he was silenced by a look from Genma that seemed to say that now was not a very good time to talk about such things.

For the first time in a very long time Genma felt a little guilty. Not much admittedly, but a little. He was sad that his son was gone, but he was relieved that his wife did not show any signs as of yet at wanting to kill him. He was confused at why was seemed to be dressing like a teenager, but he felt it best not to say anything. After all he maybe dense, but even he wasn't that stupid. Besides, he would probably find out about that later on.

As Nodoka's crying seemed to lessen, Soun began to tell Genma about his own recent tale of woe and why his home was in that state that it was.

Soun told Genma of the death of his dear wife, Kimiko and how hard it has been trying to raise the girls by himself. Soun's explanation seemed to earn him glares from his daughters, with the younger one snorting, then mumbling something about her father doing nothing but crying and ignoring them.

As Genma looked at the other two children, he noticed the eldest, who he met briefly earlier, seemed to be barely awake and the middle one seemed to be trying to hold in all her emotions, which seemed to be the opposite of what Soun was doing.

"Yes, you have been trying so hard to keep your family together.", Nodoka said in a sarcastic tone of voice.

"I'm sure father has been trying.", Kasumi said in a half hearted fashion.

"It's a good thing I came around when I did. Imagine the husband of one of by closest friends all but abandoning his children, forcing them to run the home by themselves.", Nodoka said as Genma looked on in confusion.

As Nodoka continued to berate Soun, Genma found out that since Soun's wife had past away a few months ago, he had all but abandoned his children. For the first week after her death, he had barely come out of his room, and when he did, he never even tried to speak to his daughters.

Nodoka had come to the dojo a week earlier, looking for her old friend and was shocked at seeing an 11 year old girl trying to run the house by herself, while the other two seemed unsure of what they should do next. Nodoka had forced the girls to continue to go to school, and she had been helping out around the house, as Soun did nothing. With the news though that Ranma was gone Genma really didn't think that Nodoka would have the energy or desire to help out.

Meanwhile in Rashemen it had been a week since Ranma had arrived and everyone had finally convinced Ranma that not only was he no longer in Japan, he was no longer on his own world. Siervella had almost told the boy the truth of what happened on two occasions,  
because of how distraught the boy seemed to be. She knew that it was for the best, but seeing any child upset, and crying, which Ranma always denied, hurt her deeply.

While Ranma did miss his father, for reasons which escaped Viconia and Siervella completely, his loneliness for the man was offset by the amount of time that he was spending with Cassandra, Marlena, and Corinne. The four of them seemed to get along quite well with each other.  
All of them were quite physical when it came to playing. They all seemed to enjoy running, jumping, climbing up trees.

Suzanna though was a little different. Ranma had tried to see if the girl, who he thought was a little 'stuck up' would like to join he and the others in their games, but she also said that she had no time to play with 'children', even if in reality she was only two year older than both Corinne and Marlena.

The three girls wanted to ignore Suzanna completely but Ranma viewed getting Suzanna to be with them as a challenge. Truth be told the boy had always been a little insecure and wanted everyone to like him. He tried for a week to get her to at least be a little nicer to him, Ranma's methods though needed a little work. His troubles started the day after he arrived in the village.

Ranma watched Suzanna standing in the middle of a small fenced off ring roughly 20 feet in diameter. In the ring with her, was her mother and several small birds which Ranma thought were some sort of chickens. Every few minutes Suzanna would wave her arms in the air and mumble something.  
A second after that a blue flash of light would strike the birds and they would stop dead in their tracks as if they were statues.

It looked like some sort of martial arts technique to Ranma, but it seemed to be very inefficient. If you had to stand still and chant for the 'technique' to take affect your opponent would knock you into the ground before you could finish chanting. Maybe this was only the first part of the technique. Perhaps she needed someone to work with her in order to perfect it.

Ranma decided that he would help, maybe this would help Suzanna to learn this technique, and Ranma as well. It also might allow him to see if the girl would be more friendly towards him.

As Suzanna began to chant again, Ranma started to run, then leapt over the small fence surrounding the practice area. A small leap from there caused him to land behind the girl where he used a technique that his father often used in order to distract Ranma...He tickled Suzanna.

Suzanna shrieked, and the glare of spell flashed again, but this time it centered only on Suzanna. Ranma walked around the girl, who now seemed to be frozen in place with a stunned expression on her face.

Siervella, who was trying to stop herself from laughing finally asked Ranma what he was doing. When the boy explained the reasons why he tickled Suzanna, Siervella had to explain to the boy that learning magic was a little different from learning various fighting skills.  
Although mages did train on how to ignore certain distractions during battle they need to learn the basics first and that took time.

Ranma didn't see the point at first, and later when he told Viconia about what he had done she agreed that one always had to be aware of ones surrounding in whatever one did. Ranma's tickling of the girl reminded Viconia of certain drow training except that instead of tickling the trainers would lash their tentacle whips at the young acolytes in order to distract them as they learned to cast their first spells.

With Viconia agreeing with him, well sort of, Ranma decided that he would continue to 'train' Suzanna. She would thank him after all when he was done. For the next two days Ranma would surprise her at random times during her training and on the last day of practicing the 'daze' spell she managed to pull it off even with Ranma bothering her.  
Ranma was quite pleased with himself until Suzanna turned to yell at him and told him that it was his fault that she was taking so long to learn such a simple spell.

Ranma refused to give up. He remembered saying the same thing to his father as the man tried to train him, Suzanna just didn't appreciate what he was doing for her yet, but she would later on, and then she would agree to play with him and the others.

Two days later Ranma struck again while Suzanna was practicing another spell. This time Boo was with Ranma sitting on his shoulder,  
trying to get the boy to curtail his actions, with little success.

As Ranma seemed to leap in from no where there was a brief chill in the air which centered itself around Suzanna. The young pre-teen soon found herself with a light coating of frost from a miscast cantrip.

The slightly frozen girl lunged at Ranma, who leapt aside with Boo suggesting that perhaps it was time for them to leave. Ranma was not helping the girl in Boo's opinion.

"Curse you, you little brat. I will get you and your little hamster too.", Suzanna ranted as Ranma ran off. The poor girl sounded a little unbalanced to Boo and Siervella, who decided that perhaps it would be best if Ranma was no longer allowed to 'help' her daughter for a while.

"Perhaps it would be best if you were to leave the young lady alone for a while. Your training appears to do nothing but annoy her.", Boo squeaked out.

"It's supposed to. Pop always said that being mad at your teacher helps you to learn faster.", Ranma said.

"This is the same father that tried to throw you into a pit of cats?", Boo asked.

"Well, yeah.", Ranma replied.

"I'm will to bet that the pits of cats wasn't the only foolish idea that your father came up with.", Boo said.

"He made me do a couple other things that were hard.", Ranma said as he told Boo about the time he made Ranma run through a swamp while being chased by wolves with a couch on his back which Genma sat on.

There was also he time when Genma had thrown large cement blocks at his son in order to test the boy's reflexes. Ranma had only received a mild concussion during that escapade.

"So let me see if I understand this. Your father made you perform insanely dangerous stunts just to increase your endurance and reflexes.  
You do know that their are safer ways to do this.", Boo squeaked in an annoyed tone of voice..

"He tried his best...I guess. I mean it's not like I had a choice.  
If I didn't do it, I would usually get hit or he would call me a weak or stupid girl.", Ranma said.

"If that is the case then you should just ignore whatever he told you and listen to others. I will try to help and so will Viconia and Siervella.  
Minsc will try his best as well, although I wouldn't listen to him if he tries to teach you anything about girls. Their is a reason he didn't kiss until he was 21 after all.", Boo said while sounding ashamed.

"Kiss a girl! That's icky. Who would want to do that anyway,  
Ranma stated.

The rest of the week Ranma spent exploring the area with Cassandra by his side and her two friends looking on and giggling as the little Halfling girl seemed to drag the younger, but taller boy around.

Ranma seemed to be able to speak to just about any animal that he came across and even surprised a dryad by speaking to her in her own language. The gentle spirit suggested that perhaps the boy should train to be a Druid when he became older.

"I don't know Emerald, aren't druids kind of quiet and serious a lot of the time, Cassandra asked the dryad as they watched the young boy bounce around from branch to branch on several trees, like an oversized spider monkey.

"He is still quite young. Human boys his age have a lot of energy,  
and with his gift even if he chooses another role in life it could still help him and your tribe to better understand the ways of the many creatures of the forest and beyond.", Emerald said to Cassandra.

"I'm a little jealous of Ranma's ability. Imagine the things you could do and how famous you would be.", Corinne said.

"You could probably make a lot of gold pieces too.", Marlena replied.

"I bet we could use the animals to spy on people that way we would know if those Red Wizards or icky old trolls in the swamp are up to anything.", Corinne replied.

"Hey, Ranma is not a toy for you to use and I don't think it is right to make any animal spy for you, they could get hurt.", Cassandra said to her two friends.

"Hmmmmm, very interesting.", Marlena said as she looked at Cassandra.

"Isn't it though., Corinne also said while looking at the little halfling girl.

"What do you mean, Cassandra said, while wondering why the two older girls were looking at her 'funny'.

"She's only known him for two days, and she already sounds like a protective girlfriend.", Marlena replied.

"What, he is not my boyfriend. He's just nice that's all.", Cassandra said as she began to turn a light shade of red.

"You're only a year older than him and we have all seen what the older boys and girls do when they are together, maybe the two of you could do that when you are older.", Marlena said as Cassandra now had a silly expression on her face.

It should be noted that Cassandra was only nine years old and her idea of doing 'things' consisted of holding a boy's hand or maybe kissing him on the cheek. It would be a few years before she felt the urge to do anything else, like some of teenage boys and girls of the village did.

Emerald looked at the young girls as they talked about Cassandra's 'future romance' with Ranma, with amusement. Humans and demihumans seemed to put so much energy into a simple process. If the little halfling wanted to have offspring with the young boy when they were older, why go through so much emotion. It wasn't a difficult thing after all. Emerald had seen at least ten generations of the nearby villagers have children. You would think that they would consider it to be routine, almost boring even. Perhaps she was just missing something.

The young humans that she had talked to over the years often mentioned falling in love with someone. Nature spirits, such as dryads, nymphs, and others do not feel this emotion when they feel the need to reproduce. Perhaps this is the source of the many conflicts that seemed to center around boys and girls when they reach a certain age, Emerald pondered briefly.

A little while after the girl's plans for Ranma, he returned to the group with several pixies and faeries flying around him in an excited manner.

"Such excitement, for so late in the day. You are not bothering this boy are you.", Emerald asked the excited little creatures.

"No, no, no mistress, we no cause trouble, we just excited,  
that all.", one the pixies said.

"Yes, young boy see us do magic, then he copy. He do 'dancing light' spell without any practice. We think he maybe sorcerer. Perhaps you help train him and maybe get nice witches in village to help.", another pixie said.

"If he can do first rank spell at such a young age, imagine what he do when he older.", one of the faeries said.

This news seemed to greatly excite Cassandra. Why imagine what would happen if she were to 'accidentally' let Suzanna overhear her talking with one of her friends about how easily Ranma cast a first rank spell, when she could barely cast a cantrip.

"So how did you manage this spell, little one.", Emerald said as she bent down and looked at Ranma, who seemed to blush at the attention that the nature spirit was giving him.

"I just saw them playing and somehow I know what I had to do so that I could make those lights as well.", Ranma said while pointing at the pixies.

"Let's see if you can do it again.", Emerald said as she picked up to small sticks off of the ground and handed one to Ranma.

Ranma watched Emerald as she seemed to concentrate briefly and he could feel her begin to draw energy from somewhere. It wasn't ki, which his father taught him to draw upon, it was something different. Maybe it came from the ground or the air.

Less then a second later the end of the stick that Emerald was holding began to glow with a soft yellow light.

"Now I want you to try the same thing. It should be easier for you since this spell is simply a cantrip.", Emerald said.

"Oh yeah, I saw Suzy-chan try that earlier. She didn't do very good though.", Ranma said in his usual rough grammar.

"Suzy-chan?", Emerald asked Ranma.

"That's what I call Suzanna, but she doesn't seem to like my name for her though.", Ranma pouted slightly.

"I can't imagine why.", Marlena said with an innocent expression on her face.

"We can talk about 'her' later, I want to see Ranma cast that light spell.", Cassandra said.

As Ranma held the small stick out in front of him, he tried to remember how he had created the lights earlier. He knew that he didn't use any ki, he just though how neat it would be to creates those lights and it happened.

Ranma imagined the stick beginning to glow, then creating a light like Emerald's did, and 3 seconds later, the stick did just that, much to Ranma's glee.

"Hey I did it. I can do this magic stuff too.", Ranma said.

"Remember Ranma, magic is not a toy. You can hurt or even kill someone with it. If you want to learn to expand and control your new abilities find someone to teach you. I can help you a little, but you should find a wizard or sorcerer to train you.", Emerald said.

"Who should I ask...Oh I know, I can ask Suzy-chan's grandma, she's supposed to be powerful witch, I bet she can help me,  
Ranma replied with a smile on his face.

"We want to help too!", several pixies exclaimed.

"Perhaps after Ranma receives some training first.", Emerald said, while considering how her smaller brethren often let their enthusiasm overcome their common sense.

As the day began to turn to night, Ranma led the way back to the village while holding his glowing stick out in front of him. The light from it faded just before they four children reached the village, much to Ranma's disappointment. Maybe he could make it glow again when he saw Minsc and Viconia.

When Ranma returned to his temporary, or so he thought, new home he saw, that not only was Minsc and Viconia home, but that 'Trollface' was over as well as her mother and grandmother.

"Oh you are back, good I was wondering where you went off to,  
Minsc said to Ranma.

"Cassandra and her friends took me to see that nice woman who lives in the tree.", Ranma said.

"Lives in the tree? Oh, you mean the Dryad, Emerald.", Viconia replied to Ranma.

"Yeah, she and the pixies let me play around the trees and I even learned some magic.", Ranma said proudly.

"Right, (snort), and I suppose that is your magic wand?", Suzanna asked while noticing the stick that Ranma was still holding in his hand.

"Don't be stupid, this is just a stick I picked up, but the pixies and Emerald taught me to make it glow.", Ranma said.

"I would like to see this.", Navidene said in an interested tone of voice.

Ranma concentrated on the stick as he did before and a couple seconds later it burst into light, much to Navidene's interest and Suzanna's horror.

"No, no, no! How can a stupid little boy like you be able to cast spells.", Suzanna almost wailed.

"Have you been able to do magic before?", Siervella asked.

"No, I just saw the pixies making these little light balls and I copied them.", Ranma said.

"Light balls?", Viconia asked.

"I think Emerald called them, 'Dancing Lights'.", Ranma said as Suzanna now began to look ill.

"You cast a first rank spell without any practice or training before. I believe that you just might be a sorcerer my dear child,  
Navidene said.

"The pixies said something like that and that I should ask someone to teach me so that I don't hurt someone on accident.", Ranma said.

"Did you have anyone in mind?", Viconia asked while hoping somewhat that Ranma might chose her.

"I heard that she was the best at doing magic and I wanted to asked her to help me.", Ranma said while pointing at Navidene.

"Interesting, I haven't trained anyone in a while. Are you sure that you do not want Viconia or my daughter to help you. You could train next to Suzanna if Siervella teaches you.", Navidene replied.

"Ugh..., train next to 'HER', I don't want to.", Ranma said while making a face at Suzanna.

"I don't want some stupid boy getting in my way either.", Suzanna said in disgust.

"Viconia dear, you are still learning your wizardry abilities are you not? Perhaps you and Ranma could practice together.", Navidene said as Viconia resisted the urge to grin.

"I suppose that might work. It would be more efficient to train more than one student at a time.", Viconia replied calmly, but with a 'twinkle' still in her eyes.

Ranma spent the next week practicing with Viconia and Navidene. While Viconia had been studying traditional wizard magic and was capable and using several midlevel spells, when she bothered to memorize them, Ranma seemed to acquire spells by instinct.

He had been allowed to look over a few low power spell books, but was unable to cast any of the spells by memorizing the spells. When someone described a certain spell or demonstrated it the results were quite different. Ranma had managed to acquire four separate cantrips and two first rank spells by the end of the first week. This marked him as an apprentice sorcerer, something that normally required at least a month of practice when the beginning sorcerer first discovered his abilities.

Ranma's speed at learning his new abilities were due in part to natural talent, but they were also due to his rather obsessive nature when it came to learning something new, a trait he picked up from learning martial arts under his father. When practicing a new cantrip Ranma tended to 'shut out' the world, focusing on only one thing to the extent of everything else.

Since he was learning a new skill that didn't even exist in his home world, or so he told them, Viconia and Navidene did not complain too much, but they had plans to get the boy to focus on other things as well if he spent too much time with his new magic in the future.

It was obvious that Ranma was quite lacking in basic math and writing skills. His native language was much different from the languages of Toril,  
but when asked to write down some basic words or sentences in Japanese which would be translated by a few spells from the village teacher, Ranma was unable to do so. He also had a poor knowledge of his world's history.

Ranma did speak about several strange devices, that many in the village thought were created only by the boy's imagination, but Ranma was unable to say who created these devices or how long they have been in use in his world. Suzanna, in particular thought Ranma was lying. After all to actually believe that some sort of large 'iron' machine could carry hundreds of people through the air faster than a person could see almost was ridiculous. Of course, she had never stowed away in the luggage compartment of the Concorde, like Ranma and Genma did.

As one week turned into three, it was Cassandra who seemed to be growing the most annoyed with Ranma, not because of the skills that he was learning, but because of how little time he seemed to spend with her.  
They saw each other in school, which Ranma was now 'persuaded' to attend,  
but outside of that they hardly saw each other.

This was not to be tolerated. A boy and his 'girlfriend' should spend more time together, even if Ranma didn't know that he was her boyfriend, or even what 'couples' did together. That was besides the point in Cassandra's mind.

Marlena and Corinne tried to distract their obsessive short friend,  
who could not see that she was acting the same way towards Ranma, that he was acting towards learning magic. In Corrine's, opinion they both needed to be smacked upside the head a few times in order to make them see how they were acting.

By the end of the third week, Cassandra could no longer hold herself back and stomped into Ranma's room in Minsc's and Viconia's home, determined to get her friend to spent more time with her one way or the other.

'SLAM', went the door to Ranma's room, surprising the boy and causing him to roll off of his bed and onto the floor.

"Ranma, we need to talk.", Cassandra said while folding her arms in front of her chest while trying to sound imposing.

"Huh?", Ranma replied coherently.

"I said we need to talk. We need to do a lot of things also.", Cassandra replied, while beginning to raise her voice.

"What do 'ya' mean?", Ranma asked.

"I mean, you have been ignoring me and everyone else just to study your stupid magic. You are becoming even worse than Suzanna.", Cassandra said as Ranma looked annoyed by that description of him.

"I'm just trying to learn this stuff. It's not as if I can learn any more martial arts from pop, so I have to do something.", Ranma said.

"Ranma, there are a lot of people learning magic, and they find time to do other things. Look here I found a map to this old shack out in the forest near here. There is supposed to be some rooms under the shack that have treasure in them. Let's go find out. I even made some food for us to eat on the way.", Cassandra said as she tried to pull Ranma up onto his feet.

Ranma did not seem to enthused to say the least and didn't even bother to look at the map that Cassandra had.

"Not right now, maybe later alright?", Ranma said.

"But what about the food I made?", Cassandra asked.

"I'm not really hungry now ok.", Ranma replied as a light snow fall began to fall in Niflheim and a certain black 'cat' fell into a well just off as Asgard in shock , causing major changes to several dozen Ranma timelines.

"Fine! I guess I will just keep all the food and treasure for myself then.", Cassandra said as she stormed out of the house and across the village mumbling to herself as a few villagers wondered what was wrong with the 'weird' Halfling girl.

Cassandra marched up to her house, went into her bedroom to retrieve an old backpack, a leather helm, that was a little too large for her, and a small dagger, before making her way to the small shack that was well hidden in a hilly glen a few miles north of the village.

As night began to fall, Ranma finally left his room and made his way to the kitchen, grabbed some hard cheddar, some bread and some apples that had been laid out earlier for him.

Sitting down in front of the fire, Ranma was briefly startled when the front door to the home slammed open and Viconia rushed in, picked the boy up and seemed to look him over as if expecting that he would be injured for some reason.

"You are alright.", Viconia sighed in relief.

"Yeah, while wouldn't I be.", Ranma said.

"A hobgoblin was seen to the east of the village and now your friend Cassandra is missing.", Minsc said as he stepped up behind Viconia.

"She hasn't come back yet?", Ranma mumbled while starting to feel a little sick.

"Do you know where she is?", Viconia asked Ranma.

"Not really. She said that she found some old map that showed where some treasure was and wanted me to go with her. I told her I didn't want to, so she left all mad and stuff, and saying that she would go get the treasure herself.", Ranma said.

"Did you see the map?", Viconia asked.

"No I was busy and didn't care about some treasure.", Ranma said.

"Don't worry, she's probably fine. She's very smart little girl,  
not as smart as Boo, but still smart.", Minsc said.

Ranma asked what a hobgoblin was and was told that it was pig like humanoid, and no it wasn't edible, when Ranma asked as an after thought.

Now while one hobgoblin was hardly a threat to the village, such creatures seldom traveled alone. The strange thing was the village scouts had only spotted the one creature, with no trace being found of the others. So either the creature was a rogue or cast off from its tribe or the others were very well hidden. In either case everyone would feel better once the creature was found and killed along with finding out what had happened to Cassandra.

All of the children in the village were ordered to stay close by,  
even Ranma who wanted to go out in search of the 'annoying' little girl. It was the job of a martial artist, or whatever, to help those in need. The fact that he felt a little guilty about how he had treated Cassandra had nothing too do with it of course.

After a day of searching no one had found any sign of the creature of Cassandra. Most of the searching was being conducted in the plains, several miles from the village, which is the terrain that hobgoblins tended to favor.

Ranma decided that maybe Cassandra's two friends might know where this shack was. Maybe she tried to ask them to go with her as well. As far as he knew no else had talked to them and they hadn't said anything to anyone. Perhaps Cassandra never spoke to them or maybe they somehow forgot. Both were a little dense in his opinion, especially Corinne, who reminded Ranma of a girl he once saw in a manga, before his father took it away. What was that girl's name, Minato, Minako, well something like that. In either case Ranma took off towards Marlena's home first. Maybe the older of the two girls would know something.

Ranma made his way across the village, sticking to the center of the village so that no one would see it fit to remind him to stay away from the outskirts. It was rather a strange feeling to walk in plain sight of everyone, but still not have them paying any attention to you, as if you were not there. Of course, everyone already had a lot on their minds, so it wasn't as if Ranma was actually invisible.

Ranma had heard Genma speak about martial artists who could become invisible, by using some of ki ability. Perhaps he could do something similar in the future by using magic.

Ranma spoke with Marlena, but she couldn't think of anyplace that this 'hidden' shack, that Cassandra spoke of, might be. Marlena did know that Cassandra spent most of her time talking about such things with Corinne.

Both Cassandra and Corinne often had a simplistic view on life regarding adventure and romance, and both often spoke of such things with fervor. Most people thought that, because of the two girl's constant daydreaming, they had their head in the clouds, or perhaps somewhere else, so to speak.

In either case, Corinne was still the best person to ask where the shack was, that Cassandra had spoken to Ranma about. With that decided both Marlena and Ranma made their way to Corinne's house.

When they arrived they found Corinne, with her nose buried in a book that talked about the Goddess Sune and her followers. This appealed to the young romantic since Sune was the Goddess of Love, and her followers were responsible for spreading love where ever they went.

After clearing her throat for the fourth time, Corinne finally noticed that Ranma and Marlena were standing only a couple of feet from her.

"Heh, sorry I guess I didn't see you there.", Corinne said with a silly grin on her face.

"You seem awfully happy, doesn't Cassandra being gone, bother you,  
Marlena said.

"You know that she has disappeared before. She probably found some new plant or animal to look over. It's not as if something bad has happened to her,  
Corinne replied.

"When she disappeared before, there wasn't any hobgoblins to worry about.", Marlena said.

"Hobgoblins, I didn't hear anything about that.", Corinne stated.

"That's because you spend to much time reading those silly books.", Marlena said.

"They are not silly!", Corinne exclaimed.

"Can't you talk about that junk later. We need to find out where that shack is, remember?", Ranma said to Marlena.

"Shack?", Corinne said.

"Cassandra said she found some old shack out in the forest that was supposed to have a lot of treasure.", Ranma said.

"Hmmmm...Oh I remember, me and Cassandra found this old shack in the woods a few miles north of here about two years ago, but there was never any treasure. It was dangerous just to go in. I mean pieces of the roof sometimes fell in and the dust and dirt did horrible things to my hair.", Corinne proclaimed.

"There was no treasure? Why did she want me to go with her then,  
Ranma asked.

"Maybe she wanted to get you out there for another reason,  
Corinne said with a grin.

"What reason?", Ranma asked.

"Well, it's pretty quiet out there. Maybe wanted to hold your hand or even kiss you.", Corinne said as Ranma had a disgusted look form on his face. After all he wasn't interested in such things, but people kept teasing him. First it was Boo, and now Corinne.

"Can you show us where this shack is?", Marlena asked Corinne.

"I guess so, but don't expect me to go back into that dirty place,  
Corinne replied.

"Now all we need to do is find a way to leave the village without being seen.", Marlena said.

"We could leave at night, then nobody would see is.", Ranma said.

"Go into the forest at night, that's not safe. What if we run into a bear or some sort of big cat, that would want to eat us.", Corinne replied, while sounding nervous.

"You don't need to worry about such stuff, I already know all of the bears and wolfs, around here.", Ranma said.

"You spoke with them, didn't you?", Marlena said to Ranma.

"Yeah, they are pretty nice. They won't hurt you unless you try and hurt them.", Ranma said.

"So we will be safe at night then?", Corinne asked.

"Should be, unless some monster shows up.", Ranma said as Corinne began to panic again.

After calming Corinne down and managing to convince her to lead them to the shack, Ranma and Marlena went back to their homes, to wait until nightfall, where they would all try to sneak out of the village.

As night fell, Ranma made his way out the window of his bedroom and set off across the village to find Corinne and Marlena. He stuck to the shadows as best as he could and he hoped that the two girls were trying their best not to be seen. They wouldn't get very far if they were spotted or if Corinne started to whine like she did earlier in the day.

After a few minutes Ranma saw the two girls. They were moving a little 'strangely'. As he moved closer to them Ranma saw that Marlena had one of her hands over Corinne's mouth and was almost dragging the shorter girl along.

"What are you doing?", Ranma whispered to Marlena.

"As soon as we left her home, she started to complain again. We are lucky that her parents didn't hear us.

"I guess she just cares more about 'stupid' stuff like her hair then she cares about Cassandra.", Ranma said while using a trick that Genma used to use on him.

The glare that he was now receiving told him that Corinne enjoyed hearing that about as much as he used to.

Reaching the edge of the village, Marlena released Corinne who surprisingly, didn't say anything to her two friends. The pout on her face though made her feelings clear.

As they started to enter the forest the three children thought that they were alone, but they failed to notice that someone was following them.

"Now what are those little brats us to.", A very familiar voice seemed to say from out of no where.

When they were about a mile north of town, the three friends froze in place when they heard someone say, "You should not have left the village without permission."

"Who's there?", the three friends seem to say at once.

"Only me?", Suzanna said as she pulled off a ring that she was wearing,  
causing her to fade back into sight right in front of everyone.

"What the...how did you?", Ranma tried to say while somewhat surprised at seeing "That Girl", appear right on front of him.

"You stole your mother's ring again didn't you?", Marlena said, while remembering the punishment that Siervella gave her daughter last time she 'borrowed' the ring without asking.

"I had no choice. For some reason mother and grandmother think that he is important for some reason.", Suzanna said Marlena.

"Why didn't you just tell them that we were sneaking off?", Corinne.

"Because I was listening to you earlier when you were at her house,  
Suzanna said as she motioned towards Corinne.

"So you don't think that anything bad happened to Cassandra?", Ranma asked Suzanna.

"I doubt it, she is probably just off pouting. But, if something is wrong then you will need me to protect you.", Suzanna said.

"Protect us? How do you plan to do that? Ranma's magic is better than yours.", Marlena smirked.

"(Snort) He does not have this though.", Suzanna said as she pulled a thin wand with gold swirls out of her belt.

"Oh...I know what that is. It's a lightning bolt wand.", Corinne said.

"Are you crazy, that's dangerous. Where did you take it from,  
Marlena said.

"It's harmless unless I say the word that activates it. Besides I know how to use it just fine.", Suzanna boasted.

"Word that activates it?", Ranma accidentally wondered allowed.

"Of course you grungy little boy the wand won't do anything unless I point it like this and say 'Execute'...oh &"

(ZAP)

"AIIIEEEEEEE", went Ranma, Corinne, and Marlena as the lightning bolt missed them by less than a foot, shattering a small tree that was behind them.

"Oops... Oh well you're fine. No harm done.", Suzanna tried to say as the three friends, with their hair now sticking straight up,  
dog piled on top of the older girl and began to beat the snot out of her.

After a few minutes of punishment, Ranma had noticed that Suzanna had 'somehow' ended up indented into the ground with her eyes swirling in opposite directions. There were also the occasional groans and moans emanating from the girl.

"I wonder if we over did it?", Corinne said.

"No, she's fine. No harm done.", Marlena said in a sarcastic tone of voice.

As the three friends waited for Suzanna to wake up from her little nap, they failed to notice at first, a small figure emerge from the brush by the side of the road, a few yards away.

"Eek! Its a monster.", Corinne exclaimed.

"Kind of a puny monster if you ask me.", Marlena said as she looked at the small somewhat reptilian creature.

"Monster...(Snort)... Grovel is no monster, no, no, no. Grovel is goblin, yes he is.", the little creature said.

"What's a goblin?", Ranma asked while looking at the puny little creature, who was no even as tall as he was.

"Why human boy ask silly question, when he speak goblin,  
Grovel asked Ranma.

"So you are not going to eat us?", Corinne asked.

"Of course not, besides humans too high in fat and cholesterol,  
yes they is. Besides Grovel is vegetarian now anyway, yes he is.", the little goblin said is 'somewhat' broken common.

"So why are you here?", Marlena said, not trusting the little creature. After all her father always said that humanoids were dirty little creatures, that couldn't be trusted.

"Grovel is adventurer who wander where he want to ever since Grovel leave Waterdeep.", the little goblin said while sounding quite proud of himself.

"Waterdeep? Isn't that a large city to the west? What were you doing there?", Corinne asked.

"Grovel first live under city, brought there by crazy old wizard Halaster, but Grovel go free when crazy wizard get taken away by nasty Drow priestess. Then nice human woman find Grovel and get Grovel good job cleaning up inn. Grovel even get silver pieces for doing good work.", Grovel said.

"Sounds like he's lying, goblins always do that.", Marlena said.

"I don't think so. I heard a couple of the witches in the village talk about this a little while ago. Some demon or devil got loose in Waterdeep and a female monk was responsible for killing the creature,  
Corinne.

Yes, yes, that very true. Nice lady adventurer kill big bad devil and nasty Drow priestess. After they dead Grovel live in town for while,  
but only couple people like Grovel, everyone else think Grovel is bad because he is goblin. They no want to get to know Grovel so he leave city.  
It very sad at first, but Grovel get over it. Grovel know that if he do good then people begin to like Grovel.", the little goblin said.

"I do think I believe him.", Marlena said.

"I do. If there's one thing I learned from being with pop, was being able to tell when someone was lying.", Ranma said, finally getting into the conversation.

"So now you know why Grovel here, why are little human in forest. It very dangerous around her now. Very mean Kobolds live in and under shack.", Grovel said.

"What are Kobold's?", Ranma asked. After all its not his fault he was unfamiliar with all the small races of the realms.

"They is small dog like creatures. Very nasty in groups. Always fight with goblins.", Grovel said.

"They can't be that tough.", Ranma said.

"They not, but they have very big Hobgoblin, that Grovel saw as their boss. He order them to capture little halfling girl that they find near old shack.", Grovel said.

"That's our friend.", Ranma shouted, causing everyone to wince and Suzanna to finally wake up and begin to search for her wand upon seeing Grovel. Fortunately it had been taken from her.

"He's harmless, besides he knows where Cassandra is.", Ranma said to Suzanna.

"If she friend, you should go get big humans to rescue little halfling girl. You too small to help. Nasty Kobold shaman want to summon demon to make tribe powerful. He want to sacrifice little halfling girl to get demon to behave.", Grovel said.

"I don't think we could make it back to the village and get anyone to help in time.", Ranma said.

"Grovel overhear two kobolds talk about hidden way into their home. If small humans go that way maybe they no be seen, but Grovel still think it too dangerous.", the little goblin said.

"It's kind of my fault she ran off hear by herself. She wanted to play together, but I had other things to do.", Ranma said.

"Grovel not know anything about that, but if you won't get large humans help, then grovel lead you to secret door and grovel give you this.", Grovel said as he pulled four eight sided gray rocks out of a sack that he was carrying.

"What are they?", Ranma asked.

"They is thunderstones. Grovel find hundreds when he in undermountain. You throw at someone and they make loud noise and bright light, to distract enemy so you can run away and not be hurt,  
Grovel said as he handed the 'rocks' over to Ranma.

"Thank you.", Ranma said sincerely.

"If you want to thank Grovel then don't die. Grovel see too many of own tribe die because they think that they can do anything. If something too hard, get help.", Grovel said.

"We will be fine now that I am protecting them.", Suzanna said as everyone looked at her funny.

"Grovel think that you should keep an eye on silly girl. Grovel think that she have no sense.", Grovel whispered to Ranma.

"You have no idea.", Ranma whispered back.

With that, Grovel set out leading the four overconfident children, err I mean, intrepid adventurers towards the Kobold lair.

Everyone stayed on the road for only 10 yards before Grovel led them off into the brush besides the road. Although the sun still showed quite brightly through the foliage, Corinne still felt like she was confined in in some sort of prison cell. Every little noise seemed to cause her to look around in all direction. This wasn't bad in and of itself, but the fact that she kept stopping when she heard an unfamiliar noise was beginning to irritate a few people.

"Keep moving. Kobolds not aware of this path, but it best not to stop in case something else sees us.", Grovel said in 'broken' common.

"Something else?", Corinne said.

"Yes, like bear or maybe big cat. Sometimes owl bears be seen here to, Grovel has heard.", the little goblin said.

"EEK!", Corinne replied.

"If you are too much of a coward to come with us, then go back to the village and stop whining.", Suzanna replied in an annoyed tone.

"It's alright, nothing will harm you while we are hill.", Ranma said while trying to calm the girl down.

Truth be told Ranma was also starting to get a little frustrated by Corinne's behavior, but from what he could tell, she probably had never been out of the village. Ranma remembered talking to a couple of people back in Japan, when he and his father had gone to the city so Genma could 'borrow' something that he wanted. These people seemed to have a few strange ideas about how 'dangerous' the forest could be.

As the group drew nearer to the back entrance to the kobold lair they had to stop twice when the heard the sounds of something talking in another language, which only Grovel and Ranma seemed to understand.

"Pheh, kobolds. Little kids stay quite 'til they go away.", Grovel said quietly, as Marlena held her hand over Corinne's mouth, just in case the girl did something stupid, like cry out.

As they neared the lair the forest was becoming darker, with the light of the sun barely reaching them as Grovel led them into a small gully, that doubled as a creek bed during the rainy season.

Ranma was presently holding on to Suzanna's wand after she dropped it when the other children were 'expressing their disfavor with her' when she fired off a bolt of lightning from the wand.

A little while later everyone stopped at an old iron door, that had been set into the bottom of a large grassy knoll. The door looked as if it had not been used in years as seemed to be almost completely covered in rust. Ranma wasn't sure that the door would even open. Well, either that or it would just fall right off its hinges and onto anyone who tried to open it.

"This is as far as Grovel goes. Inside door is back way to kobold lair. Grovel wish you luck but he still think that you make mistake. Before you go in Grovel want to tell you to be very quiet and not make any light.  
Kobolds see very well in dark and would see any light from torches or magic before little humans can see kobolds.", Grovel said to everyone.

"Thank you leading us here, I am sure that we will be alright.", Marlena said with a slight quivering of her voice.

"Alright then, Grovel go now.", the goblin said as disappeared back into the brush from which they had just traveled through.

"Well here we go.", Ranma said as he reached for the iron door, which swung open quite easily and silently.

As he went past the door, Suzanna was right behind him, followed by Marlena. Corinne was still outside looking in, when Ranma put his foot down on a colored stone inside the tunnel that was covered by layers of dirt. The stone sunk slightly into the floor and a grinding noise was heard as the iron door suddenly slammed shut and two large iron posts descended from the ceiling, blocking off access to the door.

Outside, Corinne stumbled back in shock then froze as she heard voices approaching her. She quickly overcame her fright, luckily for just as she managed to run back into the brush a patrol of 4 kobolds had come around the knoll from the opposite side to see what had caused all that noise.

"I had better get help, Corinne thought as she continued to run as fast as she could back towards the village.

Author's note:

Well it has been a while since I posted the first chapter of this story.  
I have been 'delayed' in writing this second chapter, due to the amount of new anime that I picked up over the holiday season. I have also been playing a lot of NeverWinter Nights modules. The game is somewhat addicting.

For the next story that I will be working on, it will be a side story for Little Angel Lost that I have been meaning to get to for quite some time. After that is done, I may come back to this story, or possibly work on something new. I never really know what it will be until I start writing the first sentence.

If you have any comments or questions on this story or my others you can reach me at Oki 


	3. Something Weird This Way Comes

An Unusual Father

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction by Ryo Oki All characters and places not created by me are probably owned by someone else.

Author's Note: This story will be a little different from my last story, 'Little Angel Lost' in that it has no set ending. I will simply be adding chapters as ideas come to me. This story will be primarily a comedy with some romance thrown in. It will be primarily a crossover with the Baldur's Gate 2 pc game universe and the forgotten realms universe in general with one other crossover that will be apparent a little later.  
For those familiar with AD&D mechanics the setting will use a mixture of first and second edition rules with a home made spell point system instead of the usual magic system used in AD&D.

In case I had not mentioned this before, this story is set several years after the end of the Baldur's Gate 2 computer game. The original P.C.'s are now all semi-retired and of quite high level. Also, unlike in the computer game, Minsc did not ask Aerie to be his witch. She decided to settle down with another member of the party, which I might get around to discussing later. Sorry, if this annoys anyone, but I feel that it can be too constraining to always follow the events in a certain manga or game, when I am writing about the characters in said those games for example.

Chapter 3: Something Weird This Way Comes.

As Ranma felt his foot begin to sink and the grinding noise echo from behind him, he could only sigh. One would think that he had learned his lesson from the little 'adventure' in the Aztec pyramid that he and Genma had gone through the year before. But no, he had to repeat his past mistake.

"Well that was bright.", Suzanna said in a whispered, yet sarcastic tone of voice.

"We should be quiet. Who knows how many kobolds are down here.  
They must have heard that door closing.", Marlena whispered to everyone.

Taking one last look at the closed door, before moving on, Ranma suddenly realized that they had another problem on their hands.

"Hey, where's Corinne?", Ranma said quietly, causing Marlena and Suzanna to look quickly up and down the darkened hallway.

"I think she was still outside when the door shut.", Marlena said, with a worried tone of voice.

"Oh great, the whiny little brat is outside. Can this possibly get any worse?", Suzanna said quietly.

"Why are you being so mean to her?", Marlena asked.

"Because if the kobolds or whatever else live here, finds her then they might think that other people are here as well. Now do you get it,  
Suzanna replied.

"We can't go outside to find to her. Maybe we can find another way out later on.", Ranma said.

"So we just leave her out there by herself.", Marlena said sadly.

"We don't have a choice.", Suzanna said as she turned away from the door and looked down the long dark tunnel ahead of them.

The small group of 'adventurers' began to move slowly down the dark passageway. Ranma thought he saw to faint lights up ahead, but it was hard to tell. Both he and the others were focused mainly on staying silent and not becoming stuck in the muck that seemed to compose the floor of this tunnel. The floor appeared to be mud, but the rather acrid, ammonia like scent of seemed to hint that maybe it was composed to something else. Ranma preferred not think about that though.

One thing was for certain, and that he would probably need to find new shoes after this. His traditional slippers that he wore, were not cut out to walk through this 'muddy gunk'.

After the small group had traveled about 200 feet down the tunnel,  
the floor began to change from mud to that is roughly carved stone. In fact the whole tunnel had changed from having earthen walls and floor,  
to that of rough stone.

Of more interest though, was that 100 feet past the rough stone the tunnel suddenly change to that of smooth granite. There was barely a crack in the rock to find, and it appeared to have been built many years ago.

The kobolds had not built this part of the tunnel, Ranma and the other quickly decided.

About 50 feet further in, the tunnel split into two paths. The upper path seemed to be composed of rough stone and Ranma and the others could see the faint flickering of torch light, some distance up the path. It was hard to see anything in the lower tunnel. Their was a faint bluish light in the distance, but nothing else could be seen. The first ten feet of the tunnel which was visible, was composed of the same smooth granite that they had seen before. Beyond that though, the tunnel remind strangely dark.

It was almost as if something was absorbing any light that entered the tunnel. As to who or even what could cause this, was a question that Ranma and the others were not quite sure that they wanted to know.

After a couple of minutes of whispering, it was decided that the group would first follow the upper tunnel, which seemed a whole lot,  
less creepy, than the lower tunnel.

As the began to climb its slowing sloping hallway, they heard voices coming towards then from up ahead. Without any other choice, they moved quickly back down to the tunnel intersection and began to reluctantly began their descent down the strange lower hallway.

Ranma just hoped that there weren't any trolls or other creatures that wanted to eat him as he continued to move down the tunnel.

After the door to the Kobold lair slammed shut, much to Corinne's surprise, she found herself leaping back into the dense brush that surrounded the door so that she would not be found by a patrol of kobolds coming to investigate the noise.

Corinne move back into the brush as far as she could go. Her long blond hair at first clearly stood out from the muted greens and brown of her hiding place. She fortunately quickly realized this and managed to tuck most of her hair down the back of her now somewhat ripped tunic.

She was both scared and annoyed at what had just happened. She rarely left the village without taking someone with her, and when she did she and her companions did not leave the main road. Now though here she was trying to hide amongst the trees and brush while silently bemoaning the damage to her new tunic. She had ordered it all the way the from Sembia after all. It was one similar to what the priests of Sune wore when they traveled the lands away from their temples.

She was also quite concerned about the scratches on her arms, and hoped that there were none on her face. Everyone in the village had always commented on how pretty she was, despite the fact that she did tend to be rather clumsy at times, and she knew that she wasn't the smartest girl in the village. If her face was 'damaged' would anyone want to spend any time with her.

Corinne briefly imagined herself as being several years older, now an 'old maid' of 19 with all of her friends now engaged or married while she was along watching as the opportunity for love past her by. It was a silly thought to have, given her present predicament, but whenever she was sad or frightened by something she seemed to always begin to think about such things.

As she continued to lay on the ground for what seemed like an eternity, one hour actually, a strong wind began to blow, causing her to begin to shiver.

Corinne began to wonder what was happening to her friends. From what she could tell, before the door slammed in her face, the tunnel her friends went down was all muddy and smelled quite bad. She probably would not have enjoyed walking through it, but she would at least not be alone.

After another hour, she no longer heard any Kobolds nearby. They really didn't seem to put much effort into looking for her when she first hid. They probably became bored with looking for whatever caused the door to slam shut. If she was lucky maybe the kobolds had thought that some animal had just wandered in looking for food or shelter.

She waited in her hiding place for a few moments more, before she started to move away from the kobold lair and back towards her village. Hopefully she would be able to get someone to help rescue everyone before anything bad could happen to them.

Corinne was just about to exit from the dense brush back onto the small trail that the little goblin had led them down earlier when a small gloved hand reached up from behind her, covered her mouth and pulled her back into the brush. She was so stunned that she did not even try to resist at first, which proved to be quite fortunate for if she had cried out she would have attracted the attention of a rather large hobgoblin who had been searching for what had set off the trap in the back entrance to the lair.

Stupid worthless kobolds... Have to do everything my self.  
(Grumble) (Mumble).", the creature spoke quietly to itself.

As Ranma and the others began to move down the lower tunnel, they were surprised that the walls changed yet again, about 20 feet from where they presently were.

"It looks like it is made out of glass.", Marlena said as she moved her hands across the smooth black surface of the walls.

"It's obsidian, a rock that comes from a volcano.", Suzanna said.

"There is a volcano around here?", Ranma asked in confusion, while wondering how he could have missed seeing one of those things.

"No not anymore. We learned in school that volcanoes leave these rocks behind, even after they are 'dead'. This rock is very old, maybe thousands or tens of thousands years old.", Suzanna said, sounding a lot like a teacher, the Marlena had a couples years ago, the younger girl thought to herself.

Moving farther down the passage, the walls began to glow,  
surprising the three 'adventurers'. They looked on in stunned silence as small points of lights in many colors began to glow from within the walls and ceiling. This made it much easier for them to see where they were going, not that this did anything to soothe their nerves. There was just something about the tunnel that was not "quite right".

About 100 feet down the tunnel the points of light began to form patterns. The three children first saw simple shapes such as squares and triangles forming underneath the surface of the walls. The rapidly changed as the lights began to create the forms of many creatures, including what looked like a dragon.

"This is very weird. This tunnel was made by magic, very powerful magic.", Suzanna said quietly.

"Who made it? It wasn't those smelly kobolds.", Marlena said.

"I don't know. It wasn't made by the witches of our village and I that there are no other villages within 20 miles from here.", Suzanna said to the others.

"It could be old. I remember pops and me finding this old tomb a couple years ago, back in world. We found some neat stuff in it, which looked like it could have been magic.", Ranma said.

"You and your father robbed tombs?", Marlena said quietly in shock.

"Well, it's not like the dead people needed that stuff anymore and we were both really hungry at the time.", Ranma said.

"That was wrong. Tombs are made to honor the dead. You just can't take things from them. It's an insult to those who built the tomb,  
Suzanna said.

"But they're dead too. Why should they care?", Ranma said.

"Never mind, we don't have time to talk about this now. We should still be looking for Cassandra, Suzanna said.

They continued to walk for about 15 minutes more before Suzanna stopped dead in her tracks, causing the others to bounce off of her.

"What are you doing?", Ranma asked.

"We must have walked at least a mile. This tunnel can't be that long.", Suzanna said in a frustrated tone of voice.

"The pattern on the wall keeps repeating too.", Ranma said.

"Maybe it's just a long tunnel.", Marlena said while trying to sound a little hopeful.

The three children stood around for a few minutes before Ranma pulled one of the thunder stones that Grovel had given everyone, and set it on the floor right below the glowing dragon shape on the wall.  
As the other two looked on.

"What's that for?", Marlena asked.

"Simple, we walk a little more and if we see the stone again then we know that some thing weird is going on.", Ranma said.

Five minutes later everyone found themselves standing next to one of the glowing dragon designs on the walls, and the stone, which Ranma dropped was right below it.

"Now what do we do?", Marlena sighed.

"We could try walking the other way, maybe whatever magic that is in this tunnel, only works to keep people from going into it.", Suzanna said.

They started to walk back the way that they has come and sure enough five minutes later they found themselves back in front of the same design.

"#&$#", Ranma said in frustration.

"Stupid hallway... Stupid halfling girl...It's her fault we're here to being with.", Suzanna said while kicking the wall in front of her and realizing too late that the thunder stone that Ranma set down was in the way of her kick.

(Boom) (Booom) (Boooommmm), a loud noise echoed up and down the hallway.

The three 'adventurers' were now laying on the ground with their eyes nothing but swirls as they mumbled and twitched incoherently.

Marlena, being the farthest away from the explosion, was the first to wake. It took a few moments for the dizziness to fade. As she stood up she looked over at the position that Ranma and Suzanna landed in and began to laugh.

As they woke up, Ranma and Suzanna found themselves laying on top of each other and to make things worse they were laying in such a way that their lips were touching.

"Oh, ICK!", Ranma exclaimed as he jumped away with enough force that he bounced off the ceiling and skidded down the floor, before stopping a little behind Marlena.

Suzanna had a different reaction. Marlena was surprised to see the girl's lips begin to quiver and tears begin to fall.

"(Sniff) (Sniff), It's not fair. Why him? Why did it have to be that annoying boy. I deserved better than to have my first kiss be with 'HIM'.", Suzanna moaned.

As she watched Suzanna continue to mumble to herself Marlena was torn between feeling a little sorry for Suzanna and feeling more than a little amused.

Marlena had heard how much some of the older girls in the village were looking forward to their first kiss, but considering how Suzanna tended to treat the other girls as if they were some how not as important as she was, Marlena really couldn't feel sad for her.

Ranma, looking over and seeing Suzanna sniffling said, "What's her problem? I'm probably going to get sick from kissing her."

"Why you...DIE!", Suzanna said as she tried to dive at Ranma and missed horribly.

"Ha ha, too slow.", Ranma laughed as he took off down the hallway with Suzanna right behind him.

Marlena could only sigh as she watched the two of them disappear down the hallway and reappear on the opposite side. After a few minutes of watching this she looked over at the dragon symbol on the wall and noticed a couple new lights just above it. She touched the lights and much to her surprise a small panel slid open just to the left of the dragon.

Inside the panel was a series of lights and geometric shapes. A triangle with a green, red, and blue light at each of the vertices formed the inner shape. Surround the triangle was a circle that appeared to be made of some sort of glowing blue crystal. Quite a contrast to the dull steel colored triangle. The final shape was rusty colored square that surrounded the circle and was slightly warm to the touch. The whole panel gave off a slight hum.

As Ranma and Suzanna approached Marlena, she stuck her arm straight out catching both Ranma and Suzanna in the chest. Both went down and bounced once of the floor on their rear ends before skidding to a stop.

"Hey, what did you do that for?", Ranma said.

"There's no time to play now. We have to find Cassandra, Remember,  
Marlena said.

"And how are we supposed to do that?", Suzanna said shortly before the noticed the new open panel in the wall.

"What's that?", Ranma asked while noticing the panel in the wall.

"I don't know, maybe it has something to do with us being stuck here.", Marlena said.

"It's magic. I can feel it, but I don't know how it works,  
Suzanna.

"Maybe those glowing rocks do something.", Ranma said as he began to reach for them.

"Don't touch those, we don't know what will happen if you do,  
Suzanna said.

"So do you have any better ideas, or should we just wait here until something finds us.", Marlena said as she and Suzanna began to argue about what they should do.

Ranma quickly grew tired of listening to the two girls, so as they continued to 'calmly discuss' their situation Ranma walked back up to the panel, looked at it briefly, then he pushed the red light first, followed by the green light, the finally the blue light. The girls did not even realize that Ranma had done something until they all heard a hiss of escaping air, which was quickly followed by a low rumbling sound.

"What have you done?", Suzanna said in a panicked voice as the hallway began to drop quite rapidly.

Outside of the Kobold lair, in the nearby forest, Corinne continued to struggle with what ever had grabbed onto her.

"Stupid blond girl stay still and nasty hobgoblin will find you,  
said a familiar voice.

As she began to relax, she was let go and turned to see who it was that grabbed onto her.

"What are you doing back here?", Corinne said to the little goblin Grovel, that had led them here earlier.

"Sigh, Grovel meant to leave, but as Grovel began to sneak away,  
he feel guilty. Maybe Grovel spend too much time with nice lady adventurer after Grovel leave Undermountain. Grovel has...what you call it...Oh yeah, Grovel remember now. Grovel have conscious. It be very distracting. Gravel used to care only about himself, now Grovel become worried if someone in trouble.", the little goblin said in a tone of voice that clearly showed how disgusted he was with himself at the moment.

"Are you sure that is the only reason? You weren't going to do anything naughty?", Corinne said.

"(Snort), (Cough), (Cough), Grovel never understand why humans always say such stupid things. Goblins no interested in human mates or in eating humans. Only stupid smelly orcs interesting in mating with humans, and many other things.", Grovel said in a disgusted tone of voice as he turned slightly green at the prospect at having a human mate.

"Are you sure?", Corinne said while not being convinced of the little goblin had just told her.

"Yes Grovel is sure. Besides even if goblins did like humans, we would not take child as mate. Goblins don't do such things,  
Grovel said as Corinne looked a little annoyed at being called a child.

Grovel had managed to lead Corinne out of the forest without any kobold knowing that they were ever there. As they two approached to within 200 yards of the village, they heard an annoying voice call out, "Hold foul creature and release the fair Corinne so that I might smite thee like the beast that thou are."

Corinne now had a look of utter disgust on her face as she and Grovel turned to look at a ten year old boy holding a quite beat up short sword and wearing 'armor' that looked like it had been made of various scraps of leather and kitchen pans of all things.

"Great, just what Grovel want to see, another weird little human.", the little goblin mumbled as he started to walk off down the road.

"Ah yes, run in terror foul creature and know that thou art no match for the noble and great Terione Kunanne, then the fair Corinne can show her appreciation for my person.", the weird little boy said as he briefly indulged a brief fantasy of he and Corrine walking side by side smiling at each other, with Corinne slightly behind him as was due to a person of his station.

"Right, as if I would want to be with you. Besides there is already somewhere else that I like.", Corinne grinned evilly.

Corinne watch the annoying little boy turn white for some reason before pointing to Grovel and saying, "You do not mean that creature do you not?", the little boy said as Grovel fell over.

Once he stood up again, Grovel quickened his pace while muttering something about getting away from all the perverted little humans around here.

"Wait what about Ranma and the others. Are you going to help them?", Corinne yelled at Grovel.

Grovel continued to move down the road until he was out of sight of the two children. As he past the trail that led to the Kobold lair he sighed. If he had any sense he should just leave and never come back, after all he wasn't responsible for whatever happened to the little group of children. Of course he was the one that led them to the kobold lair in the first place, his conscious reminded him.

"Grovel spend too much time with nice lady adventurer. It make grovel think of doing dumb things.", the little goblin said as he moved on to the side trail then off into the trees, heading back towards the kobold lair.

With Grovel's departure Terione turned towards Corinne and said, "Now that I have driven off the evil beast you may show your appreciation towards me.", the delusional little boy said.

"You are right, there is something I should show you.", Corinne said as she walked towards the stunned little boy, who really did not expect Corinne to agree with him. After all none of the other fair maidens of the village even did.

"What is it you wish to show me?", Terione managed to squeak out as Corrine flashed a cute, but insincere smile at the boy.

"Why this of course.", Corinne said as she pulled a small heart shaped mace seemingly from thin air.

(WHAM)

(THUD)

Corinne looked at the now unconscious Terione at her feet briefly,  
then ran off towards the village, while hoping that she could find someone to help her rescue her friends.

Back in the strange tunnel in the kobold lair, Ranma, Marlena, and Suzanna were surprised when the tunnel suddenly began to drop quite quickly.

"Ranma, this is all your fault!", Suzanna yelled as she had visions as herself being splattered all over the tunnel when it finished falling.

The tunnel continued to fall for roughly five more seconds before it quickly slowed down, then stopped, leaving three disoriented children laying on the floor once again.

As they began to stand up the tunnel took on the appearance of smooth grey stone, exactly like the hallways above the they had used. They also noticed a doorway right across from them and a blue light roughly 150 feet down the tunnel.

"Well that wasn't so bad.", Ranma said.

"Not so bad... You idiot you could have killed us.", Suzanna exclaimed.

"Quit whining. You sound like old woman. Were fine.", Ranma said as he noticed Suzanna turn a nice shade of red.

"Would you two stop arguing, you are giving me a headache,  
Marlena said.

Ignoring Suzanna Ranma moved over to the door and was surprised when it opened without any resistance revealing a rather large room that was lit with a series of glowing white crystals that were embedded in the ceiling. The room was filled with wooden crates of all shapes and sizes.

"I wonder if there is any treasure in here.", Ranma said as the two girls followed him into the room.

"Remember you just can't take something because you like it,  
Suzanna said to Ranma.

"This isn't a temple, and besides if we take it then the 'bad guys'  
can not use it, so its ok.", Ranma smirked at a glaring Suzanna as he started to wander around the room.

Wandering around the room, he saw a large crate in which the top had already been partially removed. Sliding it to one side he looked in and was disappointed to find that it was filled with some axe like weapons that were attached to long poles. Definitely not treasure in his opinion. Moving to another crate he looked in two see that it was filled with large two handed swords.

"This is weird the kobolds could not use these weapons. Maybe they are for someone else?", Marlena asked no one in particular.

"I wonder what this is?", Ranma while pointing to an insignia on one of the smaller crates in the room.

"That's the symbol of the country of Thay.", Suzanna gasped.

"Who?", Ranma asked.

"They're a country of evil wizards that live to the South. Mother told me that we have been fighting them for a long time.", Marlena said.

"I think a large battle was fought nearby about 10 years ago, but I am not sure.", Suzanna said.

"So this is stuff from that battle. The wizards are here now?", Ranma asked.

"I hope not. They are much more dangerous than a bunch of kobolds could ever be.", Suzanna said.

As the three continued to look around the room, Ranma was surprised when he heard Marlena scream then run back towards the door.

"What's wrong?", both Ranma and Suzanna seemed to ask at the same time.

"There's someone on the floor over there. I think they're dead.", Marlena said while pointing to where she used to be standing.

Ranma and the others cautiously moved over to where Marlena said she saw this body. From underneath a blanket Ranma saw what looked like an arm, except that it was red and quite shiny. Moving the blanket aside,  
he saw that the 'body' was actually a statue of some little creature that had been carved out of some time of red crystal.

"Who would want to make a statue of a stupid kobold?", Suzanna said.

"It looks so real. Look at its face. It looks like it is scared of something.", Marlena said.

Wanting a better look at the weird statue, Ranma tried to pull it upright, but it was heavier than he thought. As he struggled with the object it slipped from his hands, falling to the ground and shattering.

"So much for being quiet, I swear...", Suzanna said, but stop short as the crystal piece began to smoke, then the turned to a fine black dust as a low moan briefly filled the room before fading away.

"That was...creepy.", Ranma said as he looked around for Marlena and found the tall girl right behind, trying to hide.

The fallen statue had managed to hit a small crate as it fell over and spilled the crate's contents to the ground. Suzanna went over to the fallen crate and pickup a small hand crossbow and several weird looking bolts that looked like they would fit into the missile weapon. The tips of bolts had a reddish glow to them that was obviously magical. The crossbow itself seemed to have some magic instilled in it as well, for as she grabbed the bow it seemed to cock itself with any help from the person who held it.

"Um...If that's magic, you might want to be careful.", Marlena said while remembering how she was almost fried with the lighting bolt wand that Suzanna had been holding earlier.

"Of course I will be careful.", Suzanna snorted.

Looking down she saw a small quiver on the ground and put the bolts in it. She was surprised when the seem to 'click' into place as she place them in there. They wouldn't move until she touched them, then they slid out with ease.

Ranma was a little disappointed, all he had been able to find were some weapons and a few suits of armor that were far too big for him to ever wear. He did manage to find a few daggers and what looked like throwing stars in one container, but they were not magical.

Over in a corner of the room he was happy to find a small chest.  
He was about to reach for the lock when he stopped short and looked more closely at it.

Marlena had also seen the chest and was going to reach for it as well when Ranma grabbed her by the hand.

"What's wrong?", Marlena asked.

"Look at the lock?", Ranma said.

"I don't see anything?", Marlena replied.

"Watch this?", Ranma said as he pulled out one of the daggers that he had taken earlier and touched it to the front of the lock while standing off to the side of the chest.

There was a brief clicking noise then a short 'whooshing' sound as a small dart shot out and imbedded itself in a crate directly across from it.  
Being hit by the dart would have been painful. The fact that the dart was now dripping some sort of black liquid that was eating a hole in the crate,  
that it was embedded in caused Marlena to briefly shiver.

"How did you know?", Marlena asked.

"I didn't know what it did, but pops and I have seen a lots of stuff like that. At least there is no big axe that comes down from the ceiling like we saw in this weird pyramid.", Ranma said.

"Big axe?", Marlena gulped as she eyed the ceiling with some amount of fear in her eyes.

"Don't worry about it, we'll be alright, now lets see what's in here.", Ranma said as he opened the chest revealing a pair of dark blue colored boots.

"That's it.", Ranma sighed as he picked up the boots, which were too large for him to wear. Still they were in better condition that his shoes which were all but ruined by the muddy hallway earlier.

"What the &#!", Ranma exclaimed as the boot seemed to shrink to his size as soon as he put them on.

"Oh, magic!", Marlena exclaimed in glee.

"Magic boots? I wonder what they do?", Ranma said while trying to decide whether or not he should take them off.

"I bet they are cursed. They will drain your soul or turn you into an old man.", Suzanna said as she suddenly came up from behind Ranma.

"ACK!", Ranma replied.

"Just ignore her I don't think that they are cursed.", Marlena said.

"You don't?", Ranma said.

"Of course. If they were cursed why would you put them in a trapped chest?", Marlena said.

"That's true. They probably would have been thrown away,  
Ranma said, while hoping that she was right.

Marlena walked away from Ranma and began to search through the other crates in the room, just as Ranma had done earlier. Maybe she would find something that he had overlooked. Most of the smaller crates had already been examined, but not the larger ones. The problem was that the larger ones were stacked at least 3 high and there was no ways to move them at the moment.

Ranma, still wondering whether or not he should be wearing his new boots, began to slowing move around the room. Nothing appeared to happening to him. He wasn't any older, and he didn't feel like his soul was being drained, not that he knew what that felt like to begin with.

He began to move a little faster, then tried jumping in place. Nothing unusual happened until began to move at a slow trot. Ranma was surprised that when he reached a certain speed he found himself moving without really trying. Soon he began to move faster that he wanted to and barely avoided running into Suzanna. Soon though he lost all control and found himself bouncing off objects, and the walls.

As a large crate seemed to just appear in front of him, Ranma braced for impact as he actually slammed into and through the side of it, coming to rest against the far side. It wasn't a quiet landing.  
Fragments of the crate wall were scattered all over room and Ranma thought he heard Marlena whimpering from near by.

"At least I know what these boots do now.", Ranma thought as he crawled out of the crate, his hand unconsciously closing around a small hard object that lay on the floor.

As he exited the crate and stood up slowly, he saw Marlena standing nearby, holding her left forearm in her right hand. Moving closer Ranma could seen a two inch long splinter embedded in her skin.

"Let me see.", Ranma said as he looked at Marlena's injury.

"It hurts.", she said her eyes filling with tears.

As Ranma began to gently touch the Marlena's arm in order to see how he could remove the splinter, a yellow glow began to come from his right hand. Ranma and Suzanna, who came over to see how bad Marlena was injured,  
were surprised to see the glow spread up Marlena's arm. The splinter seemed to move out on its own. Once it was clear of the wound, the cut itself quickly began to heal over. It was almost gone when Ranma opened his hand slightly causing a gold ring to fall out. The healing slowed down then stopped with only a slight reddening of the skin on Marlena's arm to indicate that she had even been injured there.

"I guess this is what got rid of your cut.", Ranma said while picking up the ring.

"Now you have two magic items. Your lucky...", Marlena sighed.

"You can have it if you want. I mean I only found it because I smashed into that stupid crate and you got hurt from the flying wood pieces.", Ranma said.

"You want to give it to me?", Marlena said in a happy voice, that someone was giving her a ring. Admittedly it would have been nicer if Ranma was a little older and cuter, but it was still a gift from someone that cared about her so she accepted it with a smile, then kissed him on the cheek, causing him to turn away and blush.

"Well, don't the two of you look cute together. So Marlena dear,  
is Ranma your new boyfriend.", Suzanna said with a smirk.

Ranma was about to tell Suzanna what he thought of her teasing Marlena and him, when the three of them began to hear voices approaching them from the far end of the hallway.

"Damn, I guess we made too much noise.", Ranma said casually.

"Maybe we can hide and hope they don't find us.", Marlena said,  
as she and the others looked around the room.

As they hid behind he crates, Ranma and the others saw two Kobolds appear at the door of the room and look cautiously around. One of the little creatures was armed with a small crossbow and the other with a small mace and shield.

"Where this room come from, me no see it before.", the first kobold said.

"Stupid, this room boss tell us about. Room with stuff in it, hidden by magic.", the second kobold said to the first.

"Then why we see it now?", the first kobold replied.

"Maybe magic wear off..."

(CRASH)

"Oh maybe someone here!", the first kobold replied as he now looked over at Marlena who had leaned to far over against a small crate causing it and her to fall over onto the floor.

"AEEIIII!", exclaimed Marlena as a small crossbow bolt, fired by one of the kobolds barely missed her head.

"Die you little monster!", Suzanna yelled out as she popped up from her hiding place and fired a crossbow bolt of her own.

The glowing bolt hit the kobold right in the chest. The little beast looked down in shock then suddenly gave a muffled scream as its body seemed to suddenly turn to a reddish crystal-like substance, exactly like the other 'statue' that they three kids had found before.

The remaining kobold turned around in fear and began to run as fast as it could for the door. Ranma had decided to go after it, so that it wouldn't tell anyone else about how he and the two girls had into the kobold lair.

He never got the chance. Just as the kobold reached the door, he suddenly stopped short. Less than a second after that, Ranma and the others were surprised to see a small sword emerge from the back of the kobold's neck.  
The little beast fell to the ground silently, revealing a very familiar looking goblin now standing in the doorway smirking at the three 'adventurers'.

"It's you.", Suzanna said in shock.

"Yes it Grovel.", the little replied back.

"You said you were leaving. Why did you come back?", Ranma asked.

"Grovel run into silly little blond girl wandering in forest by herself.  
Grovel arrive just in time to prevent nasty hobgoblin from find her. She then tell Grovel about how door slam shut and leave her outside.", Grovel said to the others.

"Is Corinne alright?", Marlena asked."

"Yes, she fine. Grovel lead her back to village then come back here to check on silly children.", the little goblin said.

"How did you get in here without being seen?", Suzanna said in a suspicious tone of voice.

"Rude little girl forget that Grovel tell her he spend much time in Undermountain. Grovel have many skills. Is very easy to sneak past stupid little kobolds.", Grovel replied to the others.

"Have you see Cassandra?", Ranma asked.

"You mean little halfling girl?", Grovel replied as Ranma nodded in the affirmative.

"NO, grovel not see her, but he did see strange looking kobold.  
Grovel thinking that maybe he is shaman for kobold tribe. If we find him then we find little halfling girl.", Grovel said to the others.

"We, then you want to come with us?", Marlena asked in shock.

"Sigh, yes Grovel want to come with you. probably bad idea. Grovel most likely get hurt, but it wrong to leave little kids down here alone. Grovel learn as much from nice lady adventurer, when he travel with her.", Grovel sighed.

"I'm glad your staying.", Ranma said as the two looked at him strangely.

"Lets hope nothing happens to change that opinion.", Suzanna said as Grovel picked up a few weapons from the crates in the room, leaving his previous weapon, stained with kobold blood, hidden under a tarp in the back of the room along with the body of the dead kobold.

The new kobold statue was dragged by everyone to the back of the room and laid on its side where the previous statue was. Grovel was inclined to just push it over, until he and the others realized that they really did not need to make any more noise than they already had.

So with the mess cleaned up, so to speak, they began to move slowly up the hallway towards the blue light at the end of the hall.

A few moments later they came another series of stairways. One led upwards and was lit with torches. This hallway was composed of cut granite blocks and from the footprints near the foot of the stairs it had also seen extensive use recently.

The lower stairway was of rough cut stone and had appeared to have been cut recently. Dirt and even some fine plant roots could be seen sticking out of several cracks in the stone.

"So which way do we go now?", Marlena whispered.

"Grovel come here from the stairs going up. They lead to many rooms and tunnels that kobolds live in. Nothing interesting was up there that Grovel cold see. If little halfling girl is here somewhere, she maybe being held in lower tunnel.", Grovel said.

"I guess that we will have to go down then. Hopefully it won't be too hard to find Cassandra.", Ranma said.

"Unless she has already been killed.", Suzanna said without thinking.

"You think she's dead?", Marlena said with tears in her eyes.", as Ranma and the little goblin glared at her.

"Shhh... It's ok, I don't think she's dead. We still have plenty of time to find her.", Ranma said while hoping the little halfling girl didn't end up like that poor Indian guide that lead them into the pyramid in Mexico that they were there to loot..., I mean explore.

"You think so?", Marlena said.

"Yeah, I'm sure nothings happened to her.", Ranma said as Marlena took hold of his hand and the two began to walk down the hallway with Grovel leading the way and Suzanna following in the rear.

They quickly came to a small opening at the end of the hallway, just large enough for them to squeeze through. The opening led down to a sunken ditch in a darkened section of what they now saw to be a very large cave.

Across the room they could make out several kobolds holding small crossbows. They were standing in a semi-circle around a large glowing blue star, that was surrounded by a glowing blue circle.

"That's a pentagram. It's used to hold creatures in place after you summon them.", Suzanna quietly said to everyone.

As their eyes adjusted to the dim illumination of the room they noticed several odd objects against one of the walls across from them.  
One appeared to a table with four leather straps and some sort of wood roller at one end in which chains were attached to. Another object looked like a large coffin of some sort, but when the light of one of the torch of the room flickered across it, they could see that the coffin was filled with metal spikes.

"Those are used to torture someone. My older brother used to tell me and my sister icky stories about things like that.", Marlena said.

"Where is Cassandra? Do any of you see her?", Ranma asked.

Before anyone could answer there was a sharp grinding noise from the other end of the room, that caused everyone to briefly duck into the ditch to avoid being seen. As they peered over the edge of the ditch they saw a stone door, that was previously hidden open up and through it marched several kobolds in leather armor, carrying short swords. Following them was the hobgoblin that grovel had told them about.

Looking at the large humanoid, Ranma and the others could tell that this creature would be much harder to fight than any of the small kobolds. The hobgoblin was wearing chain mail armor with metal plates covering parts of its legs and arms. It wore a leather open-faced helm, and a green cloak that seemed to emit a faint glow.

From behind the imposing humanoid a small wooden table was being rolled out be two kobolds who were wearing outfits that seemed to be composed of leather, feathers, and bits of small animal bones. Who was on the table though was of more interest to the group of small adventurers.

Covered by a white cloth sack, was a very familiar young halfling.  
She was still alive, judging by how she was trying to raise herself off of the table, but something was holding her down. No one could tell if she was injured, from where they were hiding.

The table holding Cassandra was rolled up to and left on top of a small stone platform that was near the glowing pentagram.

As the last of the kobolds moved well away from the pentagram and the table holding Cassandra a low hum began to fill the room. Seconds later the hum turned into a slow chant. A red glow was seen from the doorway in which Cassandra was carried out of. Seconds later a very strange creature emerged from the red light.

It looked like a kobold from a distance, but its skin was a strange grey color and bits of flesh seemed to be barely hanging on to its body. The creature moved with a strange shuffling motion. Dark black tattered robes hung from its emaciated body at it seemed to be 'giggling' of all thing to itself as it approached the table in which Cassandra was strapped to.

"Ack...(Choke)...", Grovel coughed as he suddenly grabbed onto his nose and pinched it shut while cursing for the first time about how sensitive his nose was.

"What's wrong?", Ranma asked.

"That head shaman is not alive. Grovel don't think that he is dead either. Maybe some sort of undead or necromancer. Grovel not think that kobolds could be such things.", Grovel said as everyone else in the party began to look quite nervous.

"Are you sure about that?", Suzanna said.

"Grovel is sure. Grovel knows what undead smell like.", the little goblin said to everyone.

"So what do we do. I don't think that we can fight everyone,  
Marlena said as looked out at the two dozen or so kobolds in the room, not including the two shaman, the hobgoblin, and whatever the hell that thing near Cassandra was.

The kobold necromancer, removed some silver powder from a pouch about its waist and tossed some into the pentagram and some onto Cassandra, while seeming quite amused at how it made the halfling girl repeatedly sneeze as she inhaled the strange dust.

The necromancer pulled a bone wand out of its robes and began to wave it over the pentagram while chanting in a strange language.

"What is he saying?", Suzanna said while hoping that Ranma could understand the disgusting looking little thing.

"I'm not sure. He's mumbling. I think he's saying something about demon, princess, hells, and abyss, something like that,  
Ranma replied to Suzanna.

Just as Ranma finished speaking a red pointed of light began to form over the pentagram. It quickly expanded into an oval, opaque at first, but slowing changing to transparent. Through the red light everyone could see a barren and desolate landscape. All manner of horrible creatures moved into and out of view. Creatures could be seen tearing into one another, leaving bits of blood and gore in their wake. It was not a sight for child or anyone with a delicate constitution to see.

Marlena had seen enough and was crouching down on the bottom of the pit trying to forget what she had seen.

A dark figure moved up to the portal, its exact nature somehow hidden from those on this side of the portal. As it pushed though the portal there was a flash of bright white light. When the light faded a creature, that in Grovel's opinion, made the kobold necromancer look normal in comparison, stood in the center of pentagram with a smile on its face.

"That's a demon?", Ranma said quietly.

"Weird looking demon.", Suzanna commented.

All around the room the kobolds and the hobgoblin looked at the creature in confusion, unsure of as how they should act.

As strange as the creature's appearance was, even more unusual was its strange 'battle cry?' or "HIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE".

Author's Note:

Wow, it's been about 7 months since my last chapter of this story. Its strange how much time has seemed to slip by so quickly. Now as to why it has been so long since I released my last chapter, well to tell the truth it was a combination of being distracted by many other things and a little bit apathy on my part.

I haven't really felt like writing or even reading any fanfiction for quite some time. If I remember right, I don't think that I even started writing this chapter until early august, and even then, the pace that I wrote was a 'little' slow.

Now that this chapter is finally done I might pick up the pace a little, but I can make no promises. During the time since I published the previous chapter, in early February, I have thought of many ideas for this story and several others. I just never cold seem to get around to writing them out.

Now as for what will come next, I cannot say. Maybe it will be another chapter of this story, or maybe another side story to Little Angel Lost. I an not say, to tell you the truth.

In conclusion, I hope you will enjoy this chapter and if you have any comments or constructive criticism you can reach me then,

Ryo Oki 


	4. Something Weird This Way Comes Part 2

An Unusual Father

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction by Ryo Oki All characters and places not created by me are probably owned by someone else.

Author's Note: This story will be a little different from my last story, 'Little Angel Lost' in that it has no set ending. I will simply be adding chapters as ideas come to me. This story will be primarily a comedy with some romance thrown in. It will be primarily a crossover with the Baldur's Gate 2 pc game universe and the forgotten realms universe in general with one other crossover that will be apparent a little later.  
For those familiar with AD&D mechanics the setting will use a mixture of first and second edition rules with a home made spell point system instead of the usual magic system used in AD&D.

In case I had not mentioned this before, this story is set several years after the end of the Baldur's Gate 2 computer game. The original P.C.'s are now all semi-retired and of quite high level. Also, unlike in the computer game, Minsc did not ask Aerie to be his witch. She decided to settle down with another member of the party, which I might get around to discussing later. Sorry, if this annoys anyone, but I feel that it can be too constraining to always follow the events in a certain manga or game, when I am writing about the characters in said those games for example.

Chapter 4: Something Weird This Way Comes Part 2

Finally arriving back at the village after her little adventure,  
Corinne started to search for someone who could help her rescue her friends from the kobolds. Most of the warriors were out searching in the wrong direction, but still there would be a few warriors and maybe one the witches left in the village.

Making her way past one of the outer houses in the village, she stopped dead in her tracks at seeing an image in window right next to her. It was her own reflection and she almost fainted upon seeing it.  
Why she was...was...dirty of all things. This couldn't be allowed to happen. She wanted to be a priestess of Sune when she became older. As she looked right now, no one would want her. Still her friends were in danger and that is more important than her appearance isn't it?

Maybe if she just washed up real quick, that would do. It wouldn't take that long, then she could lead everyone back to find those nasty kobolds and kick there butts like they deserved.

Deciding this she made her way rapidly back to her own home. She made her way inside and snuck past her mother's room. It wasn't a difficult task considering her mother was 'entertaining' again. Ever since her father died her mother had taken one lover after another. It was so superficial of her. Fortunately her mother's attitudes had not rubbed off on Corinne in any ways. Well, at least she thought it didn't.

It took a little longer than she thought it would to get cleaned up properly, after all, her clothes were also quite dirty and so was she after laying in then in the forest for so long. A quick washing wouldn't do. She needed new clothes and a bath as well.

She ran out of her house an hour later, with her mother still unaware that she had even been there. Admittedly Corinne's mother was not exactly a typical parent, but at least she didn't spend half her time drunk, like Marlena's mother Misato did.

Corinne was quite lucky that she did not have to wait long to find someone to help her. A few minutes after she exited her home she ran into a familiar big bald barbarian with a hamster on his shoulder.  
Standing next to him was an equally familiar drow elf priestess.

"I am glad I found you, we found out where Cassandra was, but I got separated from them, and I had to come back here to find someone who could help.", Corinne babbled out as fast as she could.

"Slow down child, who is this 'we' that you are talking about,  
Viconia said to the little blond girl.

Corinne quickly told Minsc and Viconia what had happened to Cassandra and how they had been led through the forest by the goblin Grovel to where the kobolds were hiding. To say that Viconia was more than a little annoyed that mere children had done something so foolish was an understatement to say the least.

Minsc looked over at his wife and saw a faint glow around her,  
which tended to happen when she became very angry at someone or something. He had a feeling that if something happened to any of the children, especially the boy Ranma, his wife would not stop until every kobold within a hundred miles of their village was dead.

Minsc hoped that nothing was wrong of course, both for the children and his wife. It was their first child that caused Viconia to become more relaxed around other people. Having to bury their son though seemed to cause Viconia to withdraw more into herself. He was worried that she would soon shut herself away from everyone else.

Ranma's arrival seemed to change that. Watching his wife try and comfort the boy when he had nightmares for the first couple days after he arrived here showed him that Viconia could still care for others.

Since Corinne had never entered the kobold lair, there wasn't a reason to bring her along, but Viconia still did not believe that the girl should be wandering around by herself so Corinne was brought back to her home, but seemed reluctant to let anyone speak to her mother.

As everyone entered the house the reason to Corinne's reluctance became quite clear. Corinne sighed at how noisy her mother was being and Viconia seemed to be having trouble keeping one of her eye's from twitching.

"Perhaps we should wait until they're done?", Minsc said with a dead pan tone of voice.

"MOTHER, ARE YOU DONE YET?", Corinne said in a loud voice.

"JUST WAIT...OHHHH YEAH..., I MEAN MOTHER IS BUSY DEAR.", Corinne's mother said as Viconia grumbled something under her breath, walked right up to the door and kicked it inward with a loud crash.

"(SHRIEK), What are you doing here?", Said two very panicked voices from within the bedroom.

"Do you have any idea what your child has been doing for the past several hours?", Viconia said as she glared at the naked and quite confused woman.

"What?", Corinne's mother said as she pulled a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself.

"You are pathetic. Your child was almost killed because you spend all your time rutting like an animal with any male that you come across,  
Viconia said to the woman in a tone of voice that had her scooting backwards across the floor.

"Minsc take this fool with you while I have a talk with this pitiful excuse for a mother.", Viconia said as Minsc scooped the shocked villager out of the bed and carried him out of the house.

Once outside Minsc heaved the man through the air causing the naked villager to land in a large mud puddle, splashing several warriors who had just returned. They did not seem too thrilled with the "bath" that they had just been given.

A few minutes after he left the house, Corinne came out and sat on the front porch. One minute after that, several shrieks and loud banging sounds were heard from the house. Someone sounded as if they were in pain.

Minsc was tempted to investigate, but what little common sense the large barbarian possessed, told him that this would be a bad idea to do something like that at the moment.

The noises continued for about five minutes, then stopped suddenly.  
Viconia came out of the house with a smirk on her face. Standing next to her was Corinne's mother who was now wearing a thick robe and muttering something about how soap should not be used in such a fashion. She very quickly led her daughter back into the house and shut the door behind them.

"Do you wish to know what went on after you left?", Viconia asked Minsc who was still standing in front of the house with a blank expression on his face.

"No, it be best for Minsc if he not ask. Had enough bad dreams last time you told me.", Minsc said.

"Well, I did make up for it.", Viconia said as Minsc went from shocked to embarrassed.

Minsc and Viconia went over to the warriors, who had been splashed earlier. Since they were now done thrashing their fellow villager they listened intently to what had happened to the missing girl and the children who had gone after Cassandra.

They agreed to meet up with Minsc and Viconia at the entrance to the kobold lair as soon as they could quickly acquire new arrows and other provisions.

Halfway to their destination, Minsc and Viconia stopped short when a very familiar and sultry female voice called to them from the side trail that they were just about to turn onto. Coming into sight was a being that Viconia had not seen for some time and quite frankly hoped not to see for quite a while longer.

It had been over a minute and everyone in the underground chamber continued to stare at the little 'demon' that had just been summoned. Ranma was one of the first beings to snap out of the daze that he was in and took a moment to carefully look at the 'creature'.

It definitely wasn't some sort of large drooling fiery monster like the other demons that everyone had seen through the portal. The creature appeared to be a young human girl about a year older than Ranma. She had short blue hair and deep blue eyes. Of course, the small black bat wings on her back and the short spiky tail showed that she wasn't exactly human after all.

Ranma also wondered about the strange clothes that she wore. It looked almost like the uniforms that he had seen some of the older schoolgirls wear as he and his pop wandered around Japan. The outfit looked like a white one piece swimsuit with a sort ruffled medium blue skirt. There was a large blue bow on the girl's chest and a smaller one on her back, just above the skirt. She was also wearing some sort of crown and a clear blue 'glass?' visor that looked kind of neat.

The large hobgoblin began to twitch, then turned towards the kobold necromancer with an expression on his face that indicated quite clearly that he was not happy at what had appeared before him.

"FOOL, you said that you could summon a demon, a princess of the abyss that would allow us to conquer all of the neighboring tribes. I paid you for the items that you said you needed. Yet you summon this weird little human instead.", the hobgoblin snarled.

"M...m...Master she is clearly not human... Perhaps she merely wears a disguise to catch us unaware or until she sees the quality of the sacrifice we have prepared.", the necromancer said as he tried to stop from shaking.

"That had better be true or you will die.", the hobgoblin snorted.

"Who are you?", the necromancer politely asked the little demon.

"My name is Amelia Moonstone.", the demon said in a horribly cute tone of voice, causing the hobgoblin to continue to twitch.

"Are you a demon or other creature from the abyss?", the necromancer asked.

"Uh-huh, I'm a succubus, or at least mommy says that I will be one when I grow up.", the little demon girl said in a proud tone of voice.

(THUD)

The necromancer looked over in confusion then fear as the hobgoblin fell over in shock then began to rise up from the ground while looking at the necromancer in a most unfriendly manner.

"Wait milord, before you doing anything, she did admit to being a demon after all.", the necromancer quickly said.

"A child of a demon.", the hobgoblin snarled.

"But that is just it milord, demons do not have children. All demons are created as you see them. They are not born and age as mortal creatures are.", the necromancer said.

"Well, most demons are like that, but mommy said she wanted to see what having a child was like. She got the idea from some drow elf that she used to know.", the little demon girl said.

"She is still just a child. I doubt she even has any power. How can she grant us our wish?", the hobgoblin said as his hand began to move toward the hilt of his sword.

"Oh, I can do all sorts of things. Mommy is the queen of two whole layers of the abyss.", the demon said as the necromancer looked at her in shock.

"Two layers?", the necromancer whispered in fear.

"What is the problem now?", the hobgoblin said while wondering if it would just be better to kill off the annoying necromancer and the so-called demon.

"To control even 1 layer of the abyss is next to impossible. To control two...is unheard of.", the necromancer said.

"Can you grant us our wish child or not?", the hobgoblin said to the demon directly.

"Why should I? You're just mean and ugly old beast.", Amelia said.

When the demon had first appeared Ranma and the others first were too stunned by its appearance to act, but as the demon seemed to be a lot less scary than they thought it would be, they quickly came to their senses and began to come up with a plan to rescue their friend.

Suzanna steadied herself on the edge of the ditch with her crossbow loaded and aimed at the kobold necromancer. Grovel had pulled out a loud of the thunderstones and other small objects that Ranma did not recognize. Marlena was given, temporarily, the ring of invisibility and the lightning bolt wand. She exited the ditch and began to circle around to the left of the kobold group so that she could hit the two kobold shamans. As for Ranma, well he had a spell that had just come to him as he was looking at all of the kobolds and wondering what he could do to help. The spell would not blow anything up, but it would help out, he hoped.

Ranma and the others noticed the little demon say something to the Necromancer, then much to everyone's shock, she floated out of the pentagram, that was supposed to contain her. Ranma was going to attack right then, but the little demon floated over to Cassandra and ripped the rope bonds away that held her to the table. She then picked the semi-conscious halfling girl up, turned towards Ranma and the others and winked at them,  
much to their surprise. The demon then began to glow a pale red color before both she and Cassandra faded from view.

Unable to help himself, Ranma shouted out for Cassandra, attracting the attention of everyone in the room.

"We have intruders kill all of them.", the hobgoblin yelled out as a muffled curse echoed out from somewhere in the room, followed by a lightning bolt striking the two shamans and sending what was left of them slamming into the wall which they were standing by.

Meanwhile a little while earlier:

Minsc was surprised to hear a voice suddenly call out so close to him. He prided himself at being able to spot others before they managed to get to close to him. This though paled in the shock that ran through him when he noticed the brief look of nervousness that Viconia on her face. She never seemed to be shocked by anything. He readied himself for whatever beast had called out to them.

A few seconds later 3 people stepped out of the shadows of the side trail. Two of them were drow elf males and they were looking at Minsc with disgust. The third figure was a little different. She looked to be about 30 in human years with long red hair, sapphire blue eyes and two large black bat wings. The lustful look she gave Minsc went mostly unnoticed, much to the demon's dismay, especially considering how much her 'armor' showed off her figure.

A succubus, and a powerful one at that. Minsc had become quite skilled at sensing the power of a foe. He may not be considered to be 'smart' by many people, but he did have other skills. Hopefully this creature would not be too hard to deal with. He had children to rescue.

"Wait a minute...didn't that silly little blond girl say something about the kobolds summoning a demon. Maybe this was it,  
Minsc thought briefly to himself.

"It's been quite a while since we have seen each other my dear Viconia, don't you have something to say to your 'old friend'", the succubus said with an amused grin on her face.

"It has been a long time Kimori. I was starting to believe that you had forgotten about me.", Viconia said with as little emotion as she muster at the moment.

"You know this demon, Minsc said while pointing towards the succubus.

"You will show more respect towards our mistress human or you will pay the price of your rudeness.", of the drow males sneered.

He was quite surprised to find himself knocked to the ground a moment later with a small brown hamster on his chest growling at him.

The other male drow was quickly knocked to the ground by Minsc and held their by Minsc standing with one of his legs on the drow's chest.

Kimori looked at her two 'guards' now laying on the ground and reacted in an unexpected way.

Viconia was shocked to see a demon of Kimori's power now rolling on the ground laughing so hard that she was starting to gasp for breath.

The two drow were equally stunned by this sight, Minsc on the other hand just looked confused. This admittedly was not an uncommon occurrence though.

"(Snicker), (Giggle), Oh my I haven't seen anything so ridiculous in centuries. My 'brave' servants knocked to the ground by a human and his pet rodent. (Giggle) Then again you always did have the most unusual beings around you my dear Viconia.", the demon Kimori said.

"So why have you appeared here Kimori, I doubt it is for a social call.", Viconia said in a cold tone of voice.

"We have not seen each other in many years and this is the way you greet an old friend who helped you start a new life.", Kimori said as she briefly looked at Viconia, then looked at Minsc and licked her lips in a seductive manner.

Minsc seemed oblivious to this casual flirtation as well as he had the previous one.

"He can not be that dense can he?", Kimori mumbled.

"(Squeak), (Squeak), You would be surprised.", Boo squeaked.

Seeing how Viconia's stern expression had yet to change, Kimori sighed and began to speak in a somewhat annoyed tone of voice, "Fine if you wish to be that way it is your choice. I came here to tell you that now is the time for you to fulfill the pledge you made to me when you first escaped your 'first life'."

"What pledge is this?", Minsc asked as he quickly disarmed then stepped off the drow that he was partially standing on.

Boo also leapt off the other drow that he knocked down, but not before letting off a growl that a creature of his size should not be able to make.  
The little drow elf somehow knew that if he tried anything the little hamster would do something far worse than knock him to the ground next time if he tried to do anything foolish.

"Sigh, it is a long story. For now let us just say that when I first escaped from my home and family in the underdark, I might not have survived to make it to the surface if Kimori had not agreed to take me there... For a price.", Viconia said while trying to hide the fact at how much discussing her past disturbed her.

"You make it sound so ominous. It was a simple exchange of services.  
Besides my dear, it is not as if I asking you to kill someone. Well... at least not directly.", Kimori smiled.

"Then what do you want?", Viconia said in frustrated tone of voice.  
After all she had a few children to look for and a "demon" to kill.

"Why I wish you to rescue my daughter from the foolish creature that summoned her.", Kimori said to a surprised Viconia and Minsc.

"Your daughter? Demons do not have children.", Viconia said.

"I'll explain after she is rescued. For now you must simply except the truth of what I am saying to you. My dear naive daughter foolishly walked into a portal that appeared in the abyss. Everyone else ignored the portal because the pathetic excuse for a summoner had nothing to offer. My daughter thought it was some sort of game and went through the portal.", Kimori said while sounding impatient.

"Why couldn't you go?", Minsc asked, while sounding suspicious of the demon's motives.

"The portal in the abyss closed before anyone else could go though,  
and the original builders of the 'temple' in which she appeared was warded against teleporting into it from this plane of existence.", Kimori said.

"You can not also risk someone finding out that all is not right in your realm can you?", Viconia asked with a smirk as Kimori frowned.

"No, I can not. Now will you help or must we continue this pointless banter.", Kimori said.

"Very well, I will help, but after your daughter is rescued then my debt to you is repaid in full.", Viconia replied.

"Agreed.", Kimori said before fading out, taking the two unconscious drow with her.

Minsc and Viconia quickly made their way to where they were told the kobold lair would be. They were met upon arrival, by the warriors from the village. Neither of the small groups had come upon any kobolds or any other humanoids for that matter during their short journey. The front door to the 'lair' was even standing wide open. Some faint noises could be heard through the open door, but it was impossible to tell what they were or where all of these supposed kobolds had disappeared too.

Ranma could tell the others were not happy with him, not that he blamed them, he wasn't too happy with himself. He really didn't mean to yell out to Cassandra but he couldn't help it. He had no idea where she and the demon went to. Maybe she was taken someplace really nasty like that swamp, or back to that evil looking place that they had seen through the portal perhaps she was even (BAMF)...Or she could just have appeared right next to him still being held by the demon.

"Eek, its the demon.", Suzanna said while trying to point her crossbow at the 'evil' creature.

(BONK)

"Oww, you little #$#", Suzanna said as her crossbow was taken away and she was smacked on top of the by the little demon just after she set the still groggy Cassandra on the ground.

"Now be nice or I might decide not to save you from all of them.", the little demon said as she pointed to all of the kobolds that were now piling into the room.

Another lightning bolt struck a group of five kobolds as the were charging the ditch which Ranma and the others were in.

"Now for some fun.", the little demon said in glee as she began to chant causing a glowing red sphere to form just in front of her hands.

"Aiyah, little kids get down. Little demon going to cast spell,  
Grovel exclaimed as Suzanna leapt on top of Cassandra and Ranma, much to their surprise.

As the spell left the little demon's hands it changed from a bright red sphere, to a dull whitish blue sphere which struck the large hobgoblin right between the eyes.

(Wump)

Down in the ditch, Ranma and the others waited for what they thought would be a large explosion. They had little to worry about.

"What kind of spell goes 'Wump'.", Suzanna mumbled.

As she and the others began to stand and look out at what had just happened, they were surprised to see the hobgoblin laying on the ground face up with what looked like a large snowball covering his face.

"Well that didn't work. What did I do wrong?", the little demon said with a pout on her face.

Nearby the kobold necromancer began to cast a spell of his own. It was the same spell that the demon had tried to cast moments earlier.

Seeing the fireball now forming, Ranma and the others once again threw themselves onto the floor.

Seconds later a bright flash and a blast of hot air flew over the top of ditch. No one was burned, but they cool feel the heat in the air. This was quickly followed unfortunately by the smell of burnt flesh and hair.

Looking carefully over the edge of the ditch Ranma and the others were shocked to see the now dead bodies of over 40 kobolds. The only two survivors were the kobold necromancer, who was covered by some sort of red glowing force field and the hobgoblin. He looked somewhat roasted but he was still very much alive and quite angry.

The little demon seemed so amused at how the necromancer had done her job for her, by destroying all of the kobolds that were bothering her, that she did not notice the hobgoblin charging towards her with a glowing sword in its hand.

Ranma grabbed a handful of the thunderstones and threw them towards the kobold as hard as he could. Several exploded around the beast, but two struck the hobgoblin right in the head, stunning him and knocking him to the ground.

"You tried to hit me when I wasn't looking. I'm going to punish you for that.", the little demon said in a righteous sounding voice.

Amelia pulled a small gold belt out of no where and fastened it about her waist. She walked up to the felled hobgoblin, grabbed him by the neck and tossed him into the air. Flying up to meet him the little demon swung herself around and struck the hobgoblin with a circle kick that sent him flying into the door which the necromancer had originally come through.

As the hobgoblin slid down the door, Ranma could not help but feel a little jealous. It was true that he enjoyed learning magic, but he still was impressed by the demon's martial arts. She had kicked the ugly beast at least thirty feet. Ranma had once asked his father how far he could hit someone, and he said over fifty feet, but Ranma had never seen his father do this. His father wouldn't lie to him though would he?

Ranma was jolted awake from his thoughts by the little demon Amelia landing right in front of him.

"She's cute.", Ranma said barely above a whisper.

"Thank you for saving me.", Amelia said with a smile as she put her arms around Ranma and kissed him lightly on the cheek, causing him to suddenly stiffen briefly, then relax.

"I didn't do a lot.", Ranma said while sounding humble much to Suzanna's amusement.

"That's true.", Suzanna said.

"Who's the old lady?", Amelia said while pointing to Suzanna.

"Grrrr... What did you say.", Suzanna growled.

Before the two young girls could get into it, so to speak,  
several loud crashes and screams began to echo behind the door, which the hobgoblin was slumped up against.

A few seconds later the door was blown off its hinges, and heading towards the kobold necromancer. The door barely slowed down as it struck the kobold and carried both he and hobgoblin towards a very familiar torture device.

(Squish)

"Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww.", went the children as they saw hobgoblin and kobold necromancer smash into the iron maiden with the door to it slamming shut behind it.

"Hey, where did the bad guy go?", Minsc said as he stuck his head through the door.

Viconia followed shortly behind, quickly looked around and seeing that Ranma and the others appeared safe, walked over to the iron maiden and opened it. Looking briefly, she gave a disinterested snort and slammed the lid shut, producing an even larger 'squishy' noise than before.

"How disappointing, I was so looking forward to killing the useless creatures.", Viconia thought to herself as she walked towards the children.

As she reached the children Viconia first thought that the girl behind Ranma was Marlena but quickly realized that it was the dear 'friend' Kimori's child.

Marlena soon reappeared, quite literally, and looked over Cassandra to see if the little halfling girl was alright. A quick check by Viconia confirmed this to be true.

"So you are Amelia, Kimori's child?", Viconia asked the little demon, while feeling somewhat ill as ease at how close the little creature was standing next to Ranma.

"I know you, mommy talks about you all the time.", Amelia said.

"She does?", Viconia said in surprise.

"Mommy said she regrets letting you get away and something about you having the nicest little butt she has ever seen on an elf, or something like that.", Amelia said as everyone stared at the little demon, then at the now blushing Viconia.

"Minsc not sure he want to ask.", Minsc mumbled while sounding somewhat out of sorts.

"(Squeek, Squeek, Squack), I don't know, it sounds like an interesting story to me.", Boo squeaked out.

Any further discussions were put on hold as Viconia and Minsc led everyone out of the kobold lair. As they began the climb up to the surface Suzanna couldn't help but notice how empty the place was, She wondered if all of the kobolds ran away or something.

Ranma, now holding the still unconscious Cassandra in his arms,  
was wondering the same thing.

"Strange aren't there any more kobolds left around here?", Suzanna said in a confused tone of voice.

"Not any more.", Viconia replied causing more than one person in the group to shutter involuntarily.

Bringing up the rear, the goblin, Grovel shook his head and wondered for the 100th time how his life had become so different from other goblins, not that he was complaining of course.

Upon reaching the surface the group noticed what could only be Amelia's mother step out of a portal, this time without her two 'companions'.

"Mommy!", Amelia exclaimed as she glomped onto her mother, Kimori.

"I told you not to do that in public child.", Kimori said while trying to keep a stern appearance.

"There's no demons around here, just this nice boy.", Amelia said as she pointed to Ranma.

"My what an interesting magical aura this boy has.", Kimori whispered in the demonic tongue.

"Magic aura? What's that?", Ranma replied in what sounded like the demonic language.

After a quick explanation by Viconia as to why the boy could speak demonic, Kimori began to form a portal to send herself and her daughter home.

"Can't he come with us mommy?", Amelia asked.

"No, child he is not a pet, besides it looks like he already has other girls interested in him.", Kimori said as she watched Cassandra snuggled in his arms and the other girls standing quite close to him.

"Can I stay here for a while then?", Amelia asked.

"No child, you may not. You would not be accepted among the human. I am surprised that they even allow a drow in their village, even if you are a cute little thing.", Kimori said while glancing at Viconia.

"Oh well, maybe we can see each other again.", Amelia sighed as she flew over to Ranma, and quickly kissed on the cheek again, before flying into the portal, which closed behind the little demon and her mother.

Ranma was once again so distracted by the kiss that he forgot to ask the little demon girl why she was dressed in such a strange outfit.  
It did make her look cute though, Ranma thought as everyone began to walk back towards the village where everything would be quiet for a while, or so they hoped.

Author's Note:

Well once again this chapter has taken far longer than I thought it would. I suppose I could blame it on writer's block, but if truth be told, I haven't really felt all that interested in writing as of late.  
Perhaps that will change in the future, but for now I have several other hobbies that I am trying to work on as well.

Now as for what will be written next, I can almost guarantee that it will be another story, unrelated to anything that I have written so far. I have thought of several Ranma and other anime short story ideas, so more than likely they will be written next. Until next time...

Ryo 


End file.
